Summer Days
by MioneBristow
Summary: I own nothing. Just borrowing from CL Stone and jumping ahead to some summertime dreams. What will the boys and Sang get into over Summer?
1. Chapter 1

**_June_**

It was the last day of school and I paused outside the office door that had taken over my music lesson space.

After my schedule was put back to rights of course.

I sighed heavily, thinking of the beginning of the school year and how this entire 9 months had changed my life. I knocked softly on the door before entering, eyes falling on the slim, deceptively trim figure. My eyes swept his frame, noting the standard gray suit, appreciating the fact that he'd loosened up enough to wear a maroon shirt today with a lighter gray tie.

"Miss Sorensen." My eyes flicked up to meet his, watching his lips quirk up slightly in his millimeter smile as his eyes of hard steel shifted to soft silver.

My head ducked slightly before I returned the smile… shyly… "Mr. Blackbourne."

"Last day." He commented, shifting to lean up against his desk, adopting a pose that was so much more like Dr. Sean's than his own.

"Yes, finally, the last day of this crazy school year." I commented as I set my bag and violin case down and went to perch on Sean's desk, noting that his eyes swept my body for a moment, and for once I wasn't at all nervous at disappointing him with what I was wearing.

His eyes lit softly with appreciation as he realized what I was wearing and the millimeter smile upped another slight millimeter.

I was wearing the first dress he'd bought for me, the deep rosy pink polo shirt dress that I'd paired with the brown wedge sandals from our excursion to the country club. My eyes remained on his as I waited for him to look at my face again, trying not to blush as I caught his eyes lingering on my bust line before they dropped to the smooth lines of my legs as I crossed my ankles and waited longer. I raised an eyebrow in question at him when he finally looked back at my face, almost giggling at the slight tinge of pink that now graced his perfectly formed cheekbones.

"Sorry." He stated softly, straightening his shoulders and touching a finger to the corner of his glasses. "How is the last day going?" he asked.

I shrugged. "About the same as usual." I commented. "I think North has collected more notes today than any other day this year."

He made a soft sound in the back of his throat. "I am glad that will be stopping today." He said.

"So is North." I quipped. "Anything else to talk about or are we going to manage my 3rd violin lesson today?"

He looked a bit surprised that I was teasing him but smiled. "Why would we want to do a silly thing like that?" he teased back.

"Oh, so we can go get lunch at the country club instead?" I retorted with a smirk.

"No, not today." He shook his head. "Whatever are you thinking young lady? We can't possibly leave during the school day…"

I snorted at that, covering my mouth with a hand as I laughed. The big Academy assignment had completed earlier in the week, leaving us free and clear to actually have a few regular days at the end of the school year. It was actually a shame that it coincided with finals and we had to spend our time studying and taking tests.

I sobered suddenly. "Next year is settled, right?" I asked. "I mean… I'm Academy enough…?"

"Yes Miss Sorensen." He nodded slightly, his eyes softening as he considered what I meant. "Everything is in order for that. We are not leaving you here without us and your father agreed to let us take over and he is not sending you to a boarding school." His gaze locked on mine as he studied my reaction to the words.

"That's good then." I said softly, ducking my head slightly and looking down at my feet as I swung them slightly, catching sight of the deep rose color that they were painted. Gabriel had wanted to let me match with maroon nails on fingers and toes but I talked him into the rose shade with a promise that he could add maroon swirls to my fingers over the weekend.

"Miss Sorensen?" Mr. Blackbourne had closed the distance between us while I was swinging my feet and he tilted my chin up with two fingers underneath it to get me to focus on him again. "What's wrong? You seem unsettled."

I shrugged slightly, feeling the courage that I'd sucked up to myself to even come to class today slipping away.

"Are the boys giving you trouble? Do you need more time with someone?" he asked.

I perked up slightly. This is it, he opened the door for the conversation right up. He often did, somehow reading my mind almost to bring things up that I couldn't seem to find the right words to talk to him about. 'Well…"

"yes, Miss Sorensen?" he asked, tone changing to one that indicated he didn't want me to waste the entire class time trying to spit out what was on my mind.

"Well, see… yes, there is something." I said softly, eyes meeting his. "One of the boys is giving me a bit of trouble lately. He always seems to keep me off guard, a little off balance."

"They should be well past that by now." He said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. I shrugged slightly. "Are they treating you too much like a girl or not enough? They've been raised better."

"Oh no, it's not that at all, he's always a perfect gentleman." I stated, eyes on his. He raised an eyebrow at me, lips pursed slightly. "I just… I need you to make sure that I get more time with him."

"Done." He nodded. "Just let me know and I'll clear out the schedule." He reached out and rested a hand on my arm and my gaze dropped to it.

"Okay." I nodded.

His lips pursed again as he studied me. "Who?"

I diverted for a moment. "are you sure we don't want to discuss my progress at violin?'

"You're getting an A no matter what."

"Oh I'm not sure that's very fair." I countered. "I mean, all I know for sure that I can do is hold it with only my chin and shoulder."

"But you are excellent at it." He stated, backing slightly and crossing his arms in the other direction. "And what we've ended up using this time for has been most beneficial."

I smiled at him.

"So tell me what it is, who it is and what I need to fix and I'll give you a pass to go meet the boys in the courtyard early."

I studied him for a long moment, so long and silent that he raised his eyebrow at me again. "You." I finally said, my brain tripping over what words to use and my heart thundering in my chest. "I need more time with you."

He blinked at me.

I drew in a breath and exhaled slowly. "Your attention and time are not at all unwanted." I said softly, biting my lip and sitting on my fingers to keep from pushing one of them into my bottom lip. "I… I … well, it's wanted and worth it and … your touch…" I blushed furiously, dropping my eyes for a moment, studying his tie before I reached out and adjusted the knot slightly.

The same way I'd adjusted Kota's tie this morning in the courtyard and North's tie before he left me at the door.

The way I would for any of my boys.

The motion seemed normal to me and I raised my gaze to meet his still slightly shocked one. "It's desired." I said. "Your time and attention… your touch… all of it." I nodded slightly. "It's very much desired." I admitted, willing my color to go away from my face as I heard the doorknob rattle slightly before it opened and Dr. Green walked in.

He actually kept silent, but I could tell that his eyes were flitting back and forth between myself and Mr. Blackbourne. If I looked, I'd probably see his usual amused smirk the way I did whenever he saw me with one of the guys. I realized that my hands were still on the knot of his tie and I blinked slightly before dropping them down to my lap.

Mr. Blackbourne didn't say anything but reached for the pad on Sean's desk and scribbled out the pass for me to leave and be in the halls. His gaze flitted back up to mine as he ripped it off and handed it to me, backing up only enough to let me slip off his desk and get myself settled on the wedge heels.

I set my jaw slightly and bit my lip. "In 3 and a half hours, you won't be my teacher anymore." I said softly, eyes locked on his. "I'll be at Kota's this weekend, starting after school… and as far as I know, there are no plans for this weekend." I ducked my head slightly and waved the pass at him. "Thank you Mr. Blackbourne." I slid past him, glancing slightly at Dr. Green before picking up my things. "Dr. Sean." I smiled slightly as I slipped out the door, overhearing him before the door shut.

"Owen…" I could hear the slight sigh in Sean's voice. "You didn't say good bye to Sang. Are you okay? What's wrong?" he asked. "Headache… fever, allergic reaction to the last day of school?"

I heard Mr. Blackbourne exhale. "I think Miss Sorensen just asked me out."

I smiled slightly at the stunned tone his voice took before I heard Sean's chuckle. "Then I think you need to clear out your schedule." The door fully closed then and I smiled before making my way out of the offices and out to the courtyard to meet up with the guys.


	2. Chapter 2

I slipped into a spot next to Gabriel. "I need your help after school." I said when he looked at me.

"Oh?"

I felt the flush of color hit my cheeks at the curiosity in his eyes. "I sort of asked Mr. Blackbourne out and it might be for the whole weekend depending on how he and Dr. Sean interpret what I did and meant." I admitted.

Gabriel grinned and reached out to tuck my hair back behind my ears. "Good for you Trouble."

"You think so Meanie?"

"Yes." He nodded. "He's been on the same page with all of us but yet still holding back from you because of how seriously he's taken this school thing." He said, leaning forward to drop a rather chaste kiss on my lips. "This is the right way to start off summer."

"Okay." I said, smoothing the skirt of the dress down and bit my lower lip for a moment. I'd been spending so much time with them this past school year but the thought and shock of finally having summer freedom was starting to feel a little overwhelming. "I've never had a summer vacation really." I said. "Usually we were locked up in the house all the time unless I went walking and last year we packed up and started moving right after school ended."

"But you didn't move in until mid-August." Kota looked puzzled, having overheard what I was saying.

"Yeah, well, we drove to a few spots. They … well… she wasn't happy with houses in different areas and his job did have a few different options for him as far as places to settle down and work out of." I said. "School got out a bit later too so it was about 6 weeks of traveling around."

"Huh." Kota blinked and pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Interesting." He smiled at me and settled on my other side. "So you might not be spending the weekend after all?" he asked.

I shrugged slightly. "Not sure, if that's okay. I think I'd at least like to suggest that we all have Sunday brunch together. Maybe we could have a family meeting?" I suggested, tilting my head to study him. He was the leader of the boys and I couldn't help at times but feel as though I'd slipped in somehow above that. Mr. Blackbourne had once asked and enlisted my help in helping him keep the family together. And as I was the center of most everything, it almost felt like being Wendy in Peter Pan. I was meant to be the mother figure to my Lost Boys. I guess that sort of meant Mr. Blackbourne as the 'head' of the family was the father figure or even Peter Pan. But that would make me giggle if I thought about it too long, he was definitely more like John, Wendy's brother and Dr. Green was definitively Peter Pan.

He nodded. "I think we can work that out no matter what is happening. We need to set out a few goals for the summer, plan some time off together…" He smiled, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. "Work out some schedules for group things as well as the one on one time with you we've all gotten used to."

I smiled. "That would definitely be nice." I said before looking back at Gabriel, who'd been quiet but perked up at the idea of scheduling out time and things to do. "So. I do need your help, Meanie." I said. "I should pack a bag just in case he shows up tonight after my ultimatum of sorts that I laid down."

He chuckled. "Just what did you say, Sang?"

I shrugged. "I just reminded him that in 3 and a half hours he wouldn't be my teacher anymore." I said. "And that as far as I knew I was free all weekend."

He grinned, tugging a lock of my hair free before smoothing it back. "And he should also know that." He teased. "We'll pack you a bag. I'll go over things with you, a few make up tips if you should choose to add a little while you're with him."

"Thank you." I said. "I guess I should also be asking you if we'll have enough free time early next week to go shop again. I think most everything will work for summertime wear and still fits but…" I grimaced. "He has a different standard, don't you think?" I asked softly, my eyes meeting his.

Gabriel's eyes softened. "And you'd like to dress at times a bit more to please him." He guessed before nodding slightly. "He had dressed a bit more formal this school year. I think you'll see that relax a bit more now that it's over but he does … yeah, he doesn't dress as casually as we do." He nodded again. "We'll put some things together, Trouble." He tilted his head. "Do you have anything in mind?"

I nodded. "I have a dress I've been holding on to." I admitted, blushing again. "After New Year… after my first introduction fully to the Academy, I went shopping with Lily."

His eyes widened in curiosity.

"I got a few things." I said. "I didn't want you to know everything in my wardrobe in case you ever wanted to be surprised on one of our dates." I smiled. "And there was a dress that he'd almost gotten for me before Halloween so I knew that was something he might like me to wear on a date." I murmured. "Lily was very happy to get to take me. It was actually rather nice." I mused.

Gabriel nodded. "I know that you still, aren't that comfortable around women." He stated softly, glancing around as North and Silas came across the courtyard to join the group. "But it seems to me that you've gotten a little more comfortable around her, Karen and Erica."

"Yes." I nodded. "Lily told me that she'd always wondered about shopping with someone else, she is always happy to go with me if I need her to. And it did take time to get used to all of them but I don't think you'll find me ever running off to a girl group and I'm not sure how many other female friends I need." I said.

He chuckled and leaned over to kiss my cheek before I was claimed by someone else. "No worries Trouble. I know you're the only one for us." He said. "So we don't need anyone else either."


	3. Chapter 3

**~A~**

"You're nervous."

Owen glared at Sean before performing a tight turn and heading back the opposite direction. "I am not, don't be ridiculous."

"You're pacing." Sean smirked at him, tossing the stress ball in the air for a moment and squeezing it. "Admit it, Owen. You're quaking in your wingtips at the thought of time alone with one little girl."

He exhaled a long breath, running his hands through his hair. "Not just some little girl." He said, a pained tone creeping into his voice. "It's Sang. The most perfect girl that ever lived." He said, turning again and shooting an annoyed gaze at Sean again before catching the stress ball that had been hurled at him. "I'm glad you find this amusing."

Sean smirked and twirled a pencil in his fingers. "It's highly entertaining." He said. "I was thinking about videoing it so that I could snap chat it later to the boys."

"You wouldn't dare."

"A dare is an entirely different thing, Owen and you know it." Sean smirked again at the icy glare that was tossed his way before his best friend and brother paced back the other way again. "Come on, you can't honestly say you never gave any thought to what you would do if you had a chance to take her on a date." He said, taking his feet off the desk and sitting up to study Owen.

One perfectly arched eyebrow headed his direction. "I take her out." He said, stopping in the middle of their shared office, his hands coming to rest on his hips.

"Sunday breakfasts don't really count." Sean said. "I know that you have used that time to talk about things just the two of you. Sometimes you end up just dropping her off with other people. This is entirely different. This is evenings… something to do all day on a Saturday." He said softly.

Owen's shoulders slumped slightly. "You're right."

"Hey." Sean was concerned over the defeated slope of his shoulders and the insecure tone in his voice. "She adores you." He said, getting up and coming around to lean against his desk, slightly closer to him. "She hangs on your every word and would do anything and everything you asked of her. You know that."

Owen nodded. "And every last one of us would do anything to make sure she was happy." He commented.

"But yet, because of how she was raised, she's an open book, Owen. She doesn't have any favorite foods or activities because she doesn't know what options she has." Sean said. "And she's very keen on the fact that you're not her teacher anymore as of 5 minutes ago and she has the whole weekend free."

Owen stared off slightly, hardly sure of the plans that were starting to form an organized line of thought in his brain.

"And she doesn't like to sleep alone." Sean tilted his head, watching him. "She likes chocolate chip pancakes."

"She eats healthy around me." Owen murmured.

"She doesn't like the thought that you might be disappointed in her if she ate anything less healthy." Sean stated, amused at what seemed to be creeping into Owen's mind as he continued to throw out a few random statements at him. "She's sensitive below her belly button."

Owen's head snapped up. "Dr. Green! Just what are you insinuating?" he glared at him, shoulders snapping into place.

"Mr. Blackbourne…" Sean mimicked before flashing him a smug grin. "Wasn't insinuating anything about you and my pookie." He stated. "But for god's sake, Owen. Doesn't it just get you something fierce when she calls you Mr. Blackbourne?"

"Not going there." Owen muttered, slipping his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Sean chuckled. "Ah… so you DO like it." He teased before chuckling. "Think Owen. There's an opera tomorrow night." He said softly. "One of your favorites. Maybe start tonight with dinner and a movie."

Owen scoffed at the idea for a moment. "Not one of those movies like the boys like." He said, raising his head and rubbing his jaw for a moment, watching Sean.

"No, not your standard movie." Sean said before pulling out the newspaper he'd been looking at earlier. "There's a classic little movie house that shows oldies. Tonight they are running a double feature of Audrey Hepburn. Breakfast at Tiffany's and My Fair Lady." He smiled as he watched Owen's eyes light up. His friend loved old movies. These two movies were among his favorites.

"I think that's a good idea."

"See, a plan has totally come together. Text Gabriel and clue him in, ask him to pack Sang's overnight bag with appropriate clothes for the weekend…" Sean shrugged as their phones logged in a group text incoming.

Owen glanced at his phone.

Sang: Family meeting over Sunday Brunch?

There was an instant flood of responses from the boys confirming the idea.

Dr. Green: Sounds good Pookie… Perhaps Mr. B will host…?

Sean grinned at him. Owen rolled his eyes. "Makes it rather convenient, don't you think?" Sean smirked.

Owen pursed his lips before smiling. "I'd get her all weekend then…" He murmured before his eyes widened and he smiled.

Mr. Blackbourne: Yes, Sunday Brunch 10 am. Miss Sorensen, I will pick you up at Mr. Lee's house tonight at 5:30.

The text chat was completely silent for almost 10 minutes.

Sang: Yes, Mr. Blackbourne. I will be ready. Thank you.

Mr. Blackbourne: No, Miss Sorensen, thank you.


	4. Chapter 4

~A~

Owen looked at Sean. "now what do I do?" he ran a hand through his hair.

Sean chuckled at the continued nerves. "What do you want to do?" He smirked even more at the blank look that slid across Owen's features. "Text Gabriel to let him know what you're planning so he can pack Sang a bag before he helps her get ready for you to pick her up. It's a tight schedule, but he knows her wardrobe and I'm sure he'll appreciate the heads up so he knows where he has to stop at or have the others stop at to get what he needs."

"oh, good idea." Owen nodded briefly before pulling his phone out again and texting what Sean had suggested. "Isn't it a big strain on Mr. Coleman to have to get Sang ready to go out with all of us?" he mused.

"Not that he's complained or mentioned." Sean shrugged, pulling out the stress ball again. "I hadn't thought about it before."

"And who helps her get ready for his date with her?"

Sean chuckled. "I don't think anyone would dare." He stated.

Owen blinked and nodded slightly. "probably sees it as part of his fun."

Sean nodded. "something like that. Or she has Lily." He said.

"oh?"

"She's been talking to her. To be honest, approaching them to find out how they made it work has been the best thing for all of us. Liam said for them too. Amongst themselves, they chose to not have children but he said, Lily's been thrilled at the chance to mentor a girl and Sang seems really comfortable with her as well, finally getting to see how a normal female interaction would be between mother and daughter."

Owen nodded slightly. "I also know that several of the boys have reached out to them as well. I'll admit to still consulting with Henry every once in a while."

"it's a resource that we cannot feel guilty about using." Sean said.

Owen's phone buzzed. He glanced at it absentmindedly.

Gabriel: Okay, dinner and movie double feature tonight, opera tomorrow. Staying at your place both nights, casual loungewear for tomorrow and Sunday brunch, right?

Mr. Blackbourne: Yes. That would work out nicely.

Gabriel: It will all be ready by 5:30 when you arrive at Kota's. I'll have the others get what I need from closets.

Mr. Blackbourne: Thank you Mr Coleman. Your assistance is very much appreciated.

Gabriel: You're welcome. But we definitely are going to be setting a dating schedule.

Mr. Blackbourne: It can be the first topic of conversation at brunch on Sunday.

Sean tossed the stress ball at him. "All settled then." It was an observation not a question.

"Yes, all settled and I'll send a text later that you are in my stead for this weekend."

"Aw, Owen, I didn't know you cared so much." Sean teased. "Just be pleseant and let Pookie have a good time."

The millimeter smile appeared and Owen nodded a brief nod before going to sit down at his desk to secure the other tickets he needed and to make plans for the weekend.


	5. Chapter 5, part 1

We'd barely gotten in the car to head to Kota's before Gabriel was snapping off texts to the guys, telling them what he needed.

"Meanie, be nice." I said, earning a chop on the back of my head.

"Hush up Trouble. We don't have time for you to protest." He stated. "They have to help us out and get what I want so that I have time to show you what you'll need to do tomorrow."

I frowned. "Tomorrow?"

He smiled briefly. "Yes Little miss Trouble. You've been claimed for the weekend, I won't be there to help you get ready for what he has planned."

My eyes widened. "Wha... but…."

Kota glanced over his shoulder. "Sweetie relax." He said. "You told him… YOU …" he said.

Gabriel nodded. "Mr. B has risen to the challenge that you laid down. He's taking his opportunity as offered that you're free for the weekend." He said.

"Oh." I blinked and felt a rush of heat to my cheeks. "Well, then yes, you'll need to show me what to do."

He grinned at me and leaned over to kiss my cheek before tilting his head slightly and capturing my lips. "Best part of being done with school?" he asked, pulling away.

Kota and Nathan both guessed random things about classes or teachers and I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Not having to pretend you're Silas' girlfriend all the time and getting to kiss you whenever I want to." He said.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yeah, I guess. As long as someone else isn't already kissing me." I teased.

"Oy! Trouble, why'd you want to go and say that?" he complained, crossing his arms and pouting as the front seat erupted into laughter."

We arrived at Kota's house and he practically dragged me upstairs to Kota's room. "Bath now, quick, and I'll wash your hair before we get started." He said, swatting me on the butt before shutting me into the bathroom.

"What? You don't want to draw the bath for me?" I asked through the now closed door. "I mean, I might make it too hot."

"No time for that Trouble." He said. "Hurry up, I've only got 2 hours." He said and I heard his feet pounding down the stairs.

I sighed. "Fine." I muttered before starting the bathwater as I undressed, putting my clothes in a neat pile on the counter, tying up my hair so it wouldn't get wet and slipped into the tub to bathe.

Within 20 minutes, I was out of the bath, wrapped in a towel and bending over the sink while Gabriel washed my hair. Less than 10 minutes after that, I was perched on a chair while he dried and combed out my hair, nibbling on a string cheese and a sliced up apple that Kota had brought up. "But…"

"No excuses ten." Kota smiled. "He's picking you up at 5:30 but who knows when dinner will be and you didn't eat much lunch because you were nervous."

"After the fact, like usual." Victor's voice floated into the room from the hall behind Kota.

"Did you bring what I asked?" Gabriel asked as he combed down the back of my hair.

"Of course, got things arranged in Kota's room for when you're done."

"Thanks." Gabriel smiled.

"Thank you Victor." I said, glancing up at the doorway, unsure of what I was thanking him for but knowing that he'd done me a favor.

"You're always welcome, Princess."

My gaze wandered up to what I could see of myself in the mirror as Kota and Victor retreated back downstairs. "Thank you Gabriel."

He smiled. "You're welcome Trouble." He said. "Now… tomorrow. You're okay to not wash your hair, wear it down or pulled into a loose ponytail tomorrow during the day." He said, running his fingers through my hair. "But tomorrow night, pay attention…" He said, reaching for a ponytail elastic and showing me a simple hairstyle that had my mouth dropping open as I studied it.

"It's beautiful." I said, turning my head from side to side.

"And you can do it on your own but if you do need me, call me when you're alone in the bathroom and I'll walk you through everything."

"Okay." I nodded. "But you hate it up." I said.

"But Mr. B likes simple elegance and that is exactly what you are showing right now." He stated before showing me what light makeup I could use, demonstrating on his own eyes how I would put the eyeliner and mascara on. "You don't need a full smoky eye for tomorrow night with what I have planned for you to wear but a little bit of this silvery gray shadow on your entire eye, from just under your brow to the lid will be nice." I nodded and he showed me the deep berry shade of lip gloss that he had. "It's not too shiny or sticky and does go on just easy, just blot once to keep it not too shiny. Tuck it in to your bag and reapply later."

"Okay." I said as he packaged the make-up and the things I needed for my hair into a sandwich baggie.

"Also… for tomorrow night, necklace, clip on earrings and a bracelet." He said, bundling them together and putting both bags into my makeup bag. I wasn't sure exactly why I even had a make-up bag but there was a bag with my name on it under everyone's sink and he insisted that I carry one any time I was not going to be around for a few days. He grinned at me again. "Now… for tonight." He said and I closed my eyes as he got started with making up my face for tonight.

I kept them closed as he kept up an endless stream of chatter, probably to distract me but mostly because My Meanie did actually talk a lot when he was involved in something. I felt his hands at the back of my head again, undoing the hairstyle that he'd shown me to do tomorrow. "Okay Trouble." He said, kissing the top of my head. "Open those beautiful eyes and check it out before I go get everything together so you can get dressed."

"Oh!" my eyes widened. "Wow…" I blinked, studying myself in the mirror. He'd gone ahead and pulled my hair up into a high ponytail, wrapping some of my hair around it in a braid. The tail was completely straight and fell down past my shoulders. "Thank you Meanie." I said, kissing him lightly. My eyes were accented by just a hint of mascara, no liner and just a bit of a light gray across the lid. He hadn't applied the lip gloss yet but helped me off the chair.

"You're very welcome Trouble." He said. "Brush your teeth and come into the bedroom when you're done." I nodded, reaching for the toothpaste and Kota's toothbrush as he hurried out of the room.


	6. Chapter 5, part 2

I walked into Kota's room to find Gabriel studying the dress that was laid out on the bed. "This is the one?" he asked, glancing at me.

I nodded. "Yes, it's the one he'd pulled off the rack before we had to leave the mall at Halloween." I said, moving next to him and looking at the halter dress with the skirt that came to my knees. It was in a shade of gray that was between charcoal and heather and had some thin lines of sparkle shot through it.

"Hmm, Mr. B's got a decent eye." Gabriel said. "Might have to let him take you shopping every once in a while."

"But then he'll only get things he likes to see me in." I said. "You keep everyone's tastes in mind when you shop with me." He smiled at that.

"Okay then, time to let you get dressed." He motioned at the bra and panty set that had been laid out. "How do you feel about strappy sandals tonight?" he asked.

"Okay, I've been in keds all day and once we are done, I'll be barefoot anyway, I can handle a few hours." I shrugged.

He chuckled and leaned over to kiss the tip of my nose. "Okay Trouble. All your underwear and shoes are in here for tomorrow night. There's a couple choices for sleepwear. Shorts and a cami for tomorrow and a skirt and top for Sunday… anything else you think you want?" I shook my head. "Okay then, call me if you need me to zip you up."

"Okay." I smiled at him as he left, drying off what was left to be dried on my body before getting dressed. The halter style top on the dress did leave me a bit nervous. It seemed so lower cut than other things I was used to wearing. But he'd picked it up first. Obviously even way back in October, Mr. Blackbourne wanted to see me in this dress. I settled it all on me, fastening it at the top and managing the zipper in the skirt. I wasn't sure if he'd realized there was a cut out at the back of the dress when he originally picked it off the rack.

Lily had convinced me that it was the perfect surprise if he didn't know. She'd explained that she tried to wear a dress like this with each of her guys on a date… it surprised them and gave her a slight thrill, feeling their hand at the base of her spine, warming wherever it rested to protect from the chill of the evening. She'd also alluded to the idea that it often lead to a more interesting afterwards… well, that's how she said it after all.

I heard more voices downstairs, from what I remembered, Dr. Sean was working a shift tonight so that he'd be free the rest of the weekend and there was going to be a sleep over tonight. Of which, I would have been at had it not been my impulsive way of throwing down a gauntlet for Mr. Blackbourne.

I tilted my head slightly and studied myself in the mirror. "Gabriel…" I called out, after opening the door. "I need your help…"

I barely should have opened the door, he must have been waiting for me to open it. "Good Lord, Trouble." He shook his head, one hand flittering casually to a spot over his heart. "You are going to finish me…" His eyes swept my body and I felt a bit of a blush coming on as he seemed to memorize every curve. "He's going to love it." He said, as he started to sense that I was feeling uneasy at his attention. I was used to it, I swear. But days like today, when he was getting me ready to go out with someone else, it sort of made me feel bad about having become so dependent on him to fix me up.

Because if I tried to do it myself, he always redid it.

"Are you sure that I can handle tomorrow?" I blurted.

"Of course you can, Trouble." He said, smiling. "Of course, if you are stuck and unsure you just call me. I'll work it out." His smile widened as my tension eased and I exhaled. "Now, what do you need?"

"I think this feels too low. Do I have a necklace that will drape and… you know…" I motioned at the expanse of skin exposed before the neckline dropped suddenly, coming to mere inches away from revealing the inside curves of my breasts.

"Of course you do." He nodded before going and finding a large lace work metal heart. "This hangs a little lower than others, it'll be good for tonight." He said putting it on me and giving a slight touch up to my hair. "Oh, before I forget, this bag tonight." He patted the small, cross body bag that had been given to me as one of my Christmas presents, from Jessica and Erica. "And the silver clutch tomorrow, I tucked that in the garment bag with everything else."

"Okay." I said as he bent to do up the straps on my sandals. The heel was slightly higher than I usually wore but they were a beautiful pair of shoes. One of the types of shoes that prompted a soft 'thank you Victor' because there wasn't anything I could say that would be appropriate. Protesting that I didn't need them did no good, trying to find a different shoe that cost less didn't work either.

So I'd very much gotten into just saying Thank you.

I heard the doors open and close and more voices filling the air downstairs. "Everyone's here?"

"Pretty much. Trouble, we hardly know what we're going to do without you tonight."

"I think you're going to be fine and figure out some way to occupy yourselves." I shook my head at him. "Maybe get a start on working out a schedule for thing we want to do this summer. You know we'll talk about that first on Sunday."

"Good idea." He nodded before making me purse my lips so that he could put my lip gloss on for me. "He'll be here soon."

I nodded, my eyes meeting his for a long moment.

"You'll be fine… you can wait up here if you want. Make a grand entrance for him." Gabriel smiled. "Stun the guys into silence, it'll be great."

I smiled. "Okay. Just remember the rules, no sending out a picture of me to Dr. Sean until after the date and no fair checking the cameras at his place obsessively."

"I wouldn't do that Trouble. That's all North and Kota."

"I know Meanie." I giggled. "But try to keep them under control."

"I'll try to distract them." He said before leaving the room with my overnight bag and the garment bag in hand so they could be put out in Mr. Blackbourne's car when he got here. I spent a few moments tucking a bit of money – ha, not like I'd be allowed to spend it – my lip gloss and phone into my purse, I debated over if I should find a sweater just in case it cooled off … wherever we were heading and I might need it but then I decided that it was June and the heat wasn't as stifling as it would be in a couple months, it was okay.

"Trouble, he's here…" Gabriel's words floated up the stairs to me. "Come on down…" He said as I looked over the railing at him, hearing the door open and Mr. Blackbourne's voice come into the house.

"Gentlemen." I smiled at the tone, I could just see him in my head, giving each of them a cursory look as though making sure they were all okay as he entered the entry area at Kota's.

A chorus of hello's came back at him and I realized that yes, all of them were here and I blinked a few times before heading downstairs.

"Is Miss Sorenson rea…."

My eyes caught his as I stepped down the last few steps of Kota's staircase, my eyes on his as he stopped speaking in the middle of a word as he saw me, his eyes locked on mine before flashing a quick apology as they wandered down my body and then snapped back up to meet mine. I kept silent, feeling all of the other 7 gazes – Gabriel was beaming at the reactions and Dr. Sean was at the hospital – on me as my cheeks heated faintly with a blush before I dared to let my eyes sweep his body in turn.

He'd actually toned it down a notch, looking more than ever as if he was seriously a 20 year old guy, taking his best girl out for an evening. Oh, sure, he was still wearing a pair of nice slacks but no tie had been harmed in the creating of the perfection that was Owen Blackbourne. He was wearing a maroon button down shirt under a gray sports coat and I wondered if he somehow was always cold to be able to mostly tolerate wearing suits most of the year before my eyes met his again and my blush deepened under his steady gaze.

A loud blast of rock music burst into the silence of the house, startling the boys back into movement and getting Kota and Gabriel to scoot out the door with my bags to stash them in Mr. Blackbourne's trunk. "Miss Sorenson." He said softly, stepping forward with his hand out towards me.

I smiled softly, moving a step closer to him and opening my mouth to greet him when the music and song lyrics started to actually break into my brain and my cheeks flushed a furious deep shade, almost matching the shade of his shirt and when he realized what the song was, he also flushed for a moment, looking into my eyes before I turned and shot a glare behind me. "Luke Taylor…. Stop that." I said sternly.

His head popped up over the back of the sofa and he flashed me an innocent grin… as the other guys were starting to also grin. "What?" he asked. "I thought it was an appropriate musical moment. You know, if our life was really a Disney film and people broke out in song for no reason. This moment was the right time for it."

My gaze narrowed on him as a slight strangled sound came from Mr. Blackbourne. "Oh really? You thought that Van Halen's HOT for Teacher was the right song for this particular moment?" I asked. "He's not my teacher anymore, Lucian."

Luke turned off the music but smirked at me. "But it's true, Sang… you're totally hot for teacher..." he teased, earning him a smack in the back of the head from North with a grumble about something that I couldn't quite make out. I rolled my eyes and turned around when I felt a hand on my arm.

The millimeter smile was in place and his eyes had gone somewhat softer in a shade of steel. "We'll let Kota sort that one out." He said softly. "You look lovely."

I smiled slightly at him. "Thank you." I murmured before looking square in his eyes. "Mr. Blackbourne."

His smile inched up another millimeter or so… maybe it was a whole centimeter even as he laced his fingers through mine and drew me closer. "Did I say lovely?" he murmured in my ear. "I meant stunning, ravishing and beautiful."

My cheeks felt a little pink again before he leaned in and his lips landed on mine and he kissed me, right there in front of the open door with his fingers laced between mine as he held me in place, the other hand coming up to gently caress my cheek before he pulled away and studied me.

The noise around us had faded to something that sounded a bit like rushing water while he kissed me … before returning to normal level, only for it to consist of various mumblings about things they wanted to do tonight. "Thank you." I said softly, in response to his further compliment and earned myself another smile that shot straight through me, making me feel as though I'd downed a large glass of something fizzy and would be able to now float through the evening at just the memory of his words.

He nodded slightly before looking around. "We'll see you Sunday morning then." He said, earning a chorus of 'good bye' before he drew me close, kept his grip on my hand and escorted me out of the house and out to his car.


	7. Chapter 6

I got into his car as gracefully as I could, looking up at where he stood, having opened the door for me. "thank you." I said softly. He smiled and shut the door, coming around to slide into the driver's seat. "Mr. Blackbourne…" I didn't get any farther because he turned to me, and a finger came up to press on my lips, effectively quieting me. My eyes widened at the way his smile bloomed across his face.

"Sang… darling." He murmured, eyes on mine. "You were quite right to remind me today that I am no longer your teacher." He pulled his finger away and leaned fully in to kiss me on the lips. I sighed against his lips, my eyes fluttering to a close as I kissed him back. "So it would only be right if when we are alone together if we are Owen and Sang." He said. "And maybe if it's just you and I with Sean… I would appreciate being called Mr. Blackbourne when we are with the team but I understand if you don't wish to pursue the formality." He said before sitting back in his seat more, his eyes still monitoring my reaction.

"That makes sense." I said quietly. "I appreciate the opportunity to be more personal with you." I chose my words carefully. "I'll let you know about when we're all together but …" I shrugged slightly and smiled at him. "It's an excellent idea. We'll keep to the formality when its Academy related." I suggested.

He nodded, a slight smile gracing his face. It was more than a millimeter. Not necessarily a full on smile but definitely more than usual. "We'll work with that." He agreed. I eyed him for a moment. "What?" he arched an eyebrow at me.

"Darling?" I questioned, arching my own eyebrow back at him as he chuckled and started the car, backing out of Kota's driveway before he shrugged.

"You don't think I should have my own nickname for you?"

I blinked slightly. "I hadn't thought about it." I said. "I guess I should be thinking more on a personal nickname for you." I tilted my head. "Because clearly we will not want to always break out the Mr. Blackbourne, Miss Sorensen act all the time. That might not be viewed very well all the time. Someone will think we're having a bit of fun in a 50 shades of gray …." I frowned, trailing off before pressing my lips together tightly, feeling my cheeks burn with a rush of color and I glanced quickly at him.

He looked minorly surprised before he laughed outright. "I guess I can see that." He said, rolling his eyes at me.

I shrugged.

"I mean, I do tend to wear suits and ties most of the time, so far in this relationship." He said, with a slight smirk. "And while they are all in some shade of gray, I'm not sure that I own 50 shades of it…."

I laughed at the comment, instantly relaxing and losing my earlier embarrassment at the comment. "I guess we'll have to ask Meanie for an accounting of all the shades of gray you own." I said lightly. "But I definitely need to give this some more thought if I'm to be your Darling."

He reached for my hand, giving it a slight squeeze as he took it in his. "You're always going to be my Darling." He said, pulling my hand to his lips and kissing the back of it when he was stopped at a stop light. "We all have something to call you." He said softly.

"True. I mean, gee, it's not like Sang is a hard name to remember or say quickly." I smiled. "Way better than Sangrida." I frowned. "I really don't like my name but what can I do…" I mumbled, looking out the window, my fingers growing cold in his grasp.

"Darling?"

"Yes, my love?" I answered him absently before blinking and looking over at him. There was such a content look on his face that I couldn't help but smile as he looked at me. "Well, I guess that wasn't as hard as I thought it would be."

"I guess not. And no one else has that one, right?"

"No, no one."

"I like how it sounds." He said, looking at me again for a moment before driving on.

I shifted, settling into the seat. "Good." I said softly. "Now… my love…" I grinned. "Just what exactly are we doing tonight? I'm actually very curious to find out what you have in store for us this weekend." I admitted.

"We'll talk about it all tomorrow morning but Sean suggested that we go to a movie." He said. "But I like older, classic movies and he had read about a movie house showing two of my favorites as a double feature so we are going to go have dinner at a place nearby and then we'll watch the movies."

I thought about what he said. "I like how that sounds." I decided. "Who do you like most, as actors, in the old movies?" I asked. "I've seen glimpses of a few of them, mostly when the boys are changing channels like mad men."

His lips quirked up at the edges. "Tonight we're seeing a couple Audrey Hepburn movies. I like her, my mother loved her movies." He admitted and I studied the slight flash of regret in his eyes and filed it away in my mental information file I kept on them all. "Humphrey Bogart, Bing Crosby… Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gene Kelly." He smiled as his face lit up as he recited a list of actors.

"I'd like to watch their movies with you." I said softly, watching as his eyes lit up even more at the idea of being able to share something he loved with me.

"Really?"

"Really. I think I would very much enjoy the movies."

"That's great, Sang. Sean will watch with me every once in a while but they're really not his thing." The pleasure filled his voice, and the tone of his voice filled me again with that fizzy feeling.

"I have a lot to catch up on…" I said.

"It won't be so bad." He said before glancing at me again. "You are absolutely stunning tonight." He said. "I like the dress, you make it look good."

I laughed softly. "Thank you. Do you recognize it?" I asked, smiling at the frown that appeared.

"Should I?"

"Maybe, but absolutely not holding it against you if you don't. You actually picked it out, off the rack when Sean was with us before Halloween. And he gave you a hard time, that the first thing you picked out for me was a date dress."

"Oh, I remember now." He smiled. "You went back to get it?"

I nodded. "I thought you must want to see it on me if you'd picked it out." I said, suddenly shy. "Lily took me shopping."

"That was very nice of her." He said. "I wanted to talk to you about something else too." He said. "We've shared several meals out since Thanksgiving." He started softly, mentioning our usual standing Sunday breakfast date. "But I know you, Sang. Even after all this time, you're always so concerned about the cost of your meal."

"I don't mean to be …" I said, eyes widening. "I just… well… when you don't eat out that often, you tend to pay very close attention to cost. It would have never been allowed, you know… in my old life, to just be able to order what I wanted with no care for cost."

"I understand that and I have noticed that you've gotten more relaxed and comfortable with it lately. I just know that as we head into this summer and the boys want to take you out more, I want you to make sure to order what you want. They… we… don't care about the cost, it's about eating something you actually want to eat, not what you think you should eat."

"Unless of course you order for me…" I teased.

He rolled his eyes. "I ask you more often what you want now." He said, having ordered for me the first time we'd shared a meal at the country club.

"I know, I'm just kidding. But what if I end up not liking what's ordered?" I asked.

"Darling, we're mostly teenaged boys. If you don't like it, we'll eat it ourselves and have you order what you want." He stated, a fond look in his eyes. "I swear. None of us will take you anywhere that we can't afford." He said softly, pulling into a parking lot and parking the car before reaching over to gently touch and then cup my cheek in the palm of his hand and I turned instinctively into his touch, warming to it and welcoming it. "Just trust us."

"I do trust you, all of you." I said softly, looking in his eyes for answers. "I think that having a full summer and planning out what will be happening for all of us will let me focus on showing you that I trust you as much as you trust me."

He considered my words for a long moment before nodding. "Fair enough." He said. "Just a few more things then that we will also need to work on alongside you as we expand this relationship we're all in."

I smiled. "You know… I do like it when you wear ties." I said, widening my eyes innocently at him.

"Is that so…?"

"Yes." I nodded.

"Why's that?"

I smiled at him. "Because it gives me something to tug on to get you close enough to kiss."


	8. Chapter 7

His eyes lit up. "Hmm. Been thinking on that one a lot?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

He chuckled and closed the distance to kiss me again. "As much as I'd like to just stay in the car and kiss you all night, it's definitely dinner time." He murmured softly.

"And we both know how cranky you get when I don't eat properly." I teased, looking at him innocently. "And this time it would be all your fault, my love."

He made a face. "Good point." He said, letting me go and getting out of the car. I waited for him to come around to open the door for me.

"Thank you." I said, putting my hand in his as he drew me out of the car, keeping my hand in his as he shut the door and slid his hand so that our palms touched and he laced his fingers through mine. I smiled up at him.

"My pleasure." He said, glancing down at me and smiling. "I could really get used to this." He said softly, studying me. "Having you all to myself."

My gaze remained locked on his. "I understand but, we didn't come all the way through this school year to let one of you run off with me all on your own." I said softly.

"Oh, I know." He said. "I just regret that I have not been able to have time alone with you as often as the others have."

"Ah, well you'll just want to fight them over that schedule we're going to make on Sunday and make sure you get a few extra spots. I mean, surely they'll see and understand that you absolutely got shut out for the last 8 months." I said.

He nodded before pointing out the movie house a few doors down. "That's where we'll be watching the movies."

I glanced over. "It's a lot smaller than the movie theater at the mall." I said.

"It is." He agreed. "That's why they typically do these type of shows, get a crowd out that wants to watch the older films." He opened a door for me, still holding my hand as he escorted me inside the building. "And for dinner, Italian." He smiled. "You like Italian, right?"

"I do." I nodded, glancing around, instantly charmed and falling in love with the classic décor of the Italian bistro that he'd brought me too. "Oh!" I breathed, eyes wide as I turned to look at everything from the candles on the tables… small tables meant for two, red curtains on the windows but the entire thing was shaded so well it made the whole space seem as though each table was a quiet intimate setting. It was romantic, I realized.

And so perfect for a date with my love.

"Sang?" His voice was right in my ear and I felt him let go of my hand and slide his hand around my waist. I tensed slightly when his hand slid right across the bare skin at my waist and I heard his sudden gasp of awareness. "There's no back…" I heard him mumble and felt him move slightly to glance at my back. "Was something wrong?" he recovered himself enough to ask.

"No Owen." I murmured. "Nothing's wrong…" I smiled, turning my head and coming practically nose to nose with him as he'd pulled me into his side and tilted his head down at me so that he could talk right into my ear. "It's perfect. I love it here…" I smiled and watched him smile back I return before he kissed my temple and gave his name to the hostess so that we could be seated.

We were seated rather quickly and given menus, ice water and a rundown of the specials. My mind was blown a bit because I was too busy looking at everything around me and not really paying attention to the hostess as she talked. "Darling?"

I glanced at Owen's hand on my arm and then up at his eyes. "What?" I blinked, suddenly feeling lost in his eyes as the steel tempered to molten silver.

"You can absolutely order from the specials or anything that catches your eye on the menu." He said. I smiled slightly and nodded before opening my menu and taking a look at it. "Do you want a lemonade?" He asked.

"No." I shook my head. "Lemonade is too…" I shrugged. "Too acidic, I try to stay away from it now." I said absently as I studied the menu.

I heard his sudden inhale of breath and I glanced up at him. "Since… since the lemon vinegar thing?" His eyes were sparking with a sudden fire and I was reminded of how scary I'd thought he was at first.

"Well." I frowned slightly. "Maybe partly but I've also never liked lemonade. It was a small part of life in Illinois, not really something that was a necessary item." I said, feeling the need to explain myself. "And around here, it seems to be all lemonade and sweet tea all the time and the sweet tea is too sweet."

His head inclined in a slight nod, his eyes still locked on mine. "So, lemonade's too much and so is the sweet tea. Maybe you'd like an Arnold Palmer. Its half lemonade and half tea." He suggested.

"It sounds interesting. The lemonade would cut the sweetness of the tea and the tea would definitely tamper the acid." I mused. "I'd like to try if that's all right, if it doesn't work for me, I can just drink water." I said.

"A logical idea." He smiled slightly. "Did you decide on something you'd like to eat?" I nodded as the waiter came over to take our orders. "Well then, ladies first." He smiled, letting me go ahead and order.

So I did. Chicken parmesan with a side of spaghetti, it came with salad or soup and I chose salad. "And an Arnold Palmer please." I said, earning a nod from the waiter as he repeated back my choices. "Thank you." I said softly. I didn't quite catch what Owen ordered but looked at him when he asked me a question. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Did you want to share a starter? We could get the fried mozzarella if you like it or something else."

"Oh no, whatever you want. " I said. "I'll sneak some of it. I think I'll have more than enough food with my dinner."

He smiled slightly and gave me a nod before ordering the antipasti for two to start with and ordered a sweet tea for himself before giving up the menu's to the waiter. He settled back in his chair more, taking a sip of his water before claiming my hand again, sliding his palm to fit with mine and lacing his fingers through mine again, giving my hand a soft squeeze. "What's on your mind, darling?"

"Not much." I smiled at him. "I was just thinking that my list of things I know about you seems rather short." I said. He tilted his head and looked curious. "You like old movies. You apparently love all shades of gray and your accent color of choice is maroon. You play piano and violin beautifully… equally." I said softly. "You like your morning coffee with one sugar and enough cream to change the color slightly, but often will choose tea…' His eyes changed to a look of speculation. "Perhaps in memory or honor of your mother's preferences." I murmured, remembering the outing I'd accompanied him on for his birthday. "You like things to be simply elegant and you like flowers…" I trailed off when he leaned over to me. "What?"

"You've forgotten the most important thing on the list, Darling."

"I have?" He nodded. "What's that?"

"I love you."


	9. Chapter 8

**~A~**

God, she was beautiful.

When her eyes lit up, her entire face lit up and it was so beautiful.

Owen was enraptured watching her, everything was so new to her and it was quite a show to watch.

He'd been slightly surprised when she'd leaned in and kissed him after his declaration of love, his ears turning a shade of red when she'd pulled away, looked in his eyes and murmured softly, her tone sounding dusky under the violin music playing in the restaurant. "I love you too, Owen." He would have kissed her with everything he had if the drinks and antipasti plates hadn't arrived at that moment.

He stole glances at her while they ate, preoccupied for a while as he pointed out the various things on the plate she might not have had before, pleased to see that she enjoyed it and she told him so when they finished, taking a long sip of her drink and wiping her fingers off on her napkin.

He'd already known that he would do anything in his power to ensure she stayed safe and happy, with his entire life… for the rest of his life. It just was closer than ever, within reach now that they had the major assignment done. Maybe now they could just focus on what they needed to in order to ensure everyone's happiness.

He blinked, noticing he'd been staring at her and she'd caught him. He averted his gaze. "Sorry."

She smiled. "You're not sorry." She teased. "You seemed miles away, Owen. Something on your mind?"

"Only you Darling."

"Well that's nice." She said with a giggle.

He chuckled. "Well, I thought so." He said, setting aside the antipasti plates as the waiter turned up with their entrees.

Dinner was quite enjoyable as they ate and discussed books and music and he tried to find out more things that she enjoyed.

She shrugged. "I am quite happy and content just spending time with everyone. I gather that is a rather odd thing for a girl my age." She commented. "But let's face it, I'm so much better off this year than I was last year." Her eyes met his over her water glass. "And I do enjoy doing anything I can with all of you. It doesn't matter to me what we do."

"I'm just saying you have a choice and are more than entitled to ask us to do things that we don't think about right off the bat." He said. She shrugged again and smiled at him. "And that's something that you've already considered." He realized.

"Yup." She said. "Don't worry about it so much my love." She reached over and rested her hand on his arm. "I don't plan on being silent during the meeting on Sunday when we're figuring things out for the summer." She gave his arm a gentle squeeze and leaned over the rest of the way to press a gentle kiss to his cheek, following it up by swiping at his cheek with her napkin as she'd left lip gloss behind.

"I've said it before and I'll always say it…" He said. "Don't ever leave us, you belong to us… with us…"

"I have no intention of leaving my family." She murmured. "I finally have somewhere to belong and fit in, I never want to lose that."

He smiled before signing the check when it was brought over to them. "I'm very glad to hear that." He said, getting up from his chair and pulling hers out, waiting for her to grab her bag before he slid his arm around her waist. "But I also don't want to miss the start of the movie." He teased. "You're going to love the show…" She beamed at him and nodded, giggling softly as she slung her purse over her other shoulder and slid her own arm around his waist as they walked through the tables, heads tilted together as they navigated the narrow path to the front door before heading to the theater a few doors down.


	10. Chapter 9

**~A~**

"What are you doing?" Gabriel chopped Luke on the top of his head. "Trouble said no sending Doc a picture until after her date.

"They're at the movies and I'm certainly not going to include them in the text." Luke shrugged and moved out of the way of another head chop as he quickly texted the picture he'd snapped of Sang to all of them.

"What else did Sang Baby say?" North looked up from where he was making a salad to go with the pizza they'd ordered.

Gabriel looked at him and then Kota in turn. "Not much." He shrugged. "only the picture thing and to not let the two of you look at camera feeds. " he pointed at him and Kota before rolling his eyes at the way Kota looked startled at the accusation and North grumbled under his breath with a dark glare on his face.

"Princess knows us far too well and well, it's Mr. B." Victor pointed out as Silas nodded. "He's not going to hurt her or treat her badly."

"And he has gotten considerably less time one on one with her than we have." Nathan said. There was a murmur of agreement throughout the room.

Gabriel nodded. "So maybe we cut him some slack and not give him a hard time if he wants to snap up extra spots with her. He's going to be very good about getting her to the next person on time." He commented as their phones all pinged with Luke's picture message. "Damn though, if Trouble didn't look good." He said.

Doc: Well, Pookie did look very lovely. As always. But why am I getting this now?

Luke: She told Gabriel not to send it til after but I figured that didn't apply to me. She was totally hot for teacher…"

A collective flurry of text 'groans' and 'face palms' ensued as the guys that were all together pulled faces and North slapped Luke in the back of the head again.

Doc: LOL, that's a good one Luke. Mr. B appointed me to be in his stead so please behave and make sure to contact me if there's anything you need.

Kota: Thanks Doc. If you finish early, you can always swing by. Mom took Jessica for an end of school weekend at the Beach.

Doc: I'll let you know if you can expect me. Thanks.

I was stunned and appreciative of my surroundings once we'd walked into the movie house. It was amazing.

Owen had let go of me to show the electronic tickets he'd booked earlier today on his phone and I walked with him up to the concession stand but as we waited in line, I couldn't help but stare all around, trying to take in every detail. I looked up and my head swung around at the sound of my name and I blushed softly, seeing the look on his face.

He was amused.

I wouldn't say he was outright laughing at me but he was definitely amused by something. "What?" I asked, blinking slightly.

"Did you want anything now?" He nodded his head towards the concession stand.

"Oh, no, thank you." I was quick to answer. "Maybe just a bottle of water…?" I suggested. "Dinner was rather satisfying." I said.

He smiled and nodded before ordering two bottles of water before he slid his arm around me again and escorted me through the narrow hallway to our theater to find seats.


	11. Chapter 10, part 1

We settled into the seats and I looked around again, taking in my surroundings. My arm was bumped when he opened my bottle of water and handed it to me. "Thank you." I said softly, looking at him before setting the bottle down in the cup holder on the opposite side.

"You're welcome darling."

I smiled. "We need to take a selfie." I stated, studying him.

"We do?"

Bless him, he looked so confused and bewildered at the idea that we needed to take a picture together. "Yes." I nodded. "We don't actually have any pictures together." I pointed out, suddenly unsure as to how that had happened.

There were pictures of me with all the guys, in pairs or trios and of course just two of us but while I'd managed to get some pictures taken with Dr. Sean, somehow, Mr. Blackbourne had avoided any sense of inappropriate teacher/student behavior. I smiled. "Of course we don't." I blurted. "Because you were my teacher…"

"Yes." He came to his senses and nodded.

"But now you're not." I said. "There's absolutely no reason we cannot take pictures together all the time."

"Well…" He hedged and I watched as his eyes dashed wildly around theater.

I tilted my head and raised an eyebrow at him when his eyes finally settled on my face again. "I'm going to assume you just don't like to have your picture taken, my love. Not that you don't want to have pictures with me." I said softly.

He pursed his lips together in his 'I'm considering something' look as his eyes locked with mine.

I slowly pushed my lower lip out in a pout at his delay in answering.

His eyes widened in something that bordered between shock and terror. "No, not that. Mr. Coleman is quite right to tell you to put the lip away." He stated, exhaling slowly. "Taking pictures with me would make you happy." His tone made it more a statement than a question. I nodded. "Then I shall take more pictures, especially with you, darling."

I brightened immediately, beaming at him. "Oh thank you, Owen, my love." I leaned over and kissed his cheek before pulling out my phone and setting it up, almost dropping it in my excited movements. He chuckled and took it from me, holding it out to capture our picture. I managed to get him to take several, our faces together smiling. One with his arm around me and we just looked at the camera with happy looks on our faces.

One of him kissing my cheek… of me kissing his cheek. He managed to get one of me snuggled in close, resting my head on his shoulder as he bent slightly to rest his cheek on the top of my head.

He drew me closer, two fingers under my chin to tilt it up as he pressed his lips to mine in a gentle kiss. My eyes fluttered to a close as I felt his tongue dart out to tease my lips, deepening the kiss when my lips parted on a sigh to allow him entrance to my mouth.

It wasn't until the lights were turned on and off in the theater and he handed my phone back to me that I saw that he'd captured photos of him kissing me and I felt my cheeks flush with a rush of color. "Oh." I said softly, breathing it out on a sigh as I felt my stomach flutter with sudden butterflies.

We looked like a couple in the picture. An honest to God, dating couple and it warmed me. I couldn't stop the smile that bloomed on my face, sure that I was looking like an idiot at how happy it made me.

I felt his lips brush against the curve of my ear. "You're beautiful and the most important person in my life." He murmured. "If pictures with me make you that happy, we'll take one every day."

I smiled and turned my head, sneaking a quick kiss before the lights turned off all the way and the movie started to show previews. "Sounds like a plan to me, my love." I murmured softly before making sure my phone was on vibrate and tucking it into my purse as I settled in, close to his side, his arm around me as we watched the previews.


	12. Chapter 10, part 2

When the lights went up after the second movie, I sat in my seat, totally stunned and amazed… and totally in love with Audrey Hepburn movies. Owen had laughed at me before kissing me to erase the hurt that his laughter had initially caused.

"I knew you'd love them." He said, beaming at the fact that I was going to be more than willing to sit with him for hours to watch old classic movies. I'd barely moved between movies, processing what I'd loved about Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I'd managed to commandeer the large bucket of popcorn he'd bought during the intermission between movies.

After of course chattering his ear off about everything that I'd liked about the first movie.

God bless Owen Blackbourne, I thought.

He'd been blessed with the gift of listening.

And I'd given him plenty to listen to. His eyes had twinkled at me behind his glasses, amusement sparking there as he nodded and fit in whatever conversation points he could add.

But My Fair Lady…?

Amazing, completely amazing and I couldn't hardly form a word to express how I felt so even during credits as people were leaving the theater, I kept eating popcorn in an automatic reaction. It just felt like my brain was going to pop out of my head if I tried to think. I glanced at him, butter on my lips and fingers and I simply shook my head on a sigh. "That was amazing." I murmured.

He chuckled and leaned over to kiss my cheek, glancing into the now empty popcorn bucket. "I'm happy to hear that." He said, taking the bucket from me and offering me napkins.

"I almost feel like I should call you Henry Higgins." I teased. "I'm feeling a little bit like Eliza Doolittle."

He pulled a face as he watched me wipe my face and fingers off, removing the buttery topping from the popcorn before he offered me a hand and helped me up out of my seat. "I suppose I can see a bit of related behavior. But I've never tried to get you to hide an accent or be anything different than you are." He smiled down at me as I wrapped my arm around his waist while we headed out and down the street to the car.

"So I don't need to work on … the Rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plain?"

"Only if you feel the need to darling."

"I think I'll be okay." I decided. "So do you own a lot of these movies? The ones you like?"

"I own several." He said. "Sometimes it is just easiest to watch them at home on the big screen."

"Well, I look forward to any time together we have at your place then. I will need to watch more movies."

"That can definitely be arranged." He chuckled, pressing a kiss to my temple. "And when you have a chance, I would like it if you would text me the pictures we took so that I can have a copy of them too."

"Oh of course." I nodded, smiling at the fact that he wanted them. "Uh… "I frowned slightly as something occurred to me. "Do you have other pictures?"

He bit his lip slightly. "Yes darling. The boys usually end up sending several pictures over when they have pictures of you or with you. It's a bit of a family trend to be honest." He said.

"I appreciate the honest response." I said sincerely. "Can we make sure to keep the ones of you kissing me on the lips to just us? I will make the suggestion on Sunday that we keep it that way across the board. That those are private pictures between me and whomever I'm kissing on our date."

He nodded. "I agree. I mean…" He shrugged one shoulder as he unlocked the car and opened my door for me, shutting me in the car before going around to get in and continue what he was saying. "We're all in on the idea that you would be with all of us equally but it does seem rather mean spirited to flaunt that side of an individual relationship with everyone else that you're not with at the moment."

I nodded. "Lily mentioned that." I commented as he started the car. "That some of them might require more time with me at one point or another." I said.

"We'll work it all out." He said, pulling out of the parking spot and merging into the traffic as he headed the car towards home. "And I'll do my best to keep them just between us."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "Try?"

He winced slightly and nodded. "Sean is honestly my oldest friend. But he has a snoopy side that makes things like my phone and any photo albums stored on it irresistible. Add to the fact that in his entire life he's never slept more than 4 hours in a row at a time…" He shrugged again. "Therefore, things must be snooped through in order to occupy his mind and force him to shut his brain off so he can try to get more sleep. He doesn't put things back where he found them so that's the only reason I know that he might have snooped through my phone."

"Well." I pondered what he said. "Whatever are you going to do?" I smiled. "Fine… Dr. Sean can see them if he snoops but once we figure out that he's doing it or has snooped already then we'll extract the promise that he won't tell the boys and if he and I take the same sort of pictures, he has to share with you." I looked over at him innocently. "As long as that wouldn't bother you."

He smiled the millimeter smile again. "Oh no, it wouldn't bother me, I swear." He said.

I smiled back and settled back more into my seat until he was pulling up in his driveway. I couldn't help the yawn that escaped me and my cheeks flushed when I realized he'd caught it. "Sorry." I apologized. "You're not boring me, I swear. It's just been a long day."

"I know darling." He said. "And then I kept you out for a double feature."

"Oh no, never say that." I hastened to shake my head and smile at him. "I loved it. It was amazing and I'd do it any time you wanted to."

His smile widened. "Okay." He said, sounding pleased with what I'd said. "We don't have much happening tomorrow anyway, so we do have all day to recover." He got out of the car, coming around to open my door and slide his hand against mine once I was free of the car, pulling me closer into him before he kissed me deeply, his free hand sliding up into the hair at the base of my neck, holding me in place.

I groaned against his lips, giving in completely and letting him kiss me senseless as I wrapped my free hand around his neck, my own fingers tangling in the hair at the back of his neck as if I needed to hold on for dear life because my legs had turned into boneless jelly towers.

Which they had.

I felt myself leaning back against his car as we kissed until he finally pulled away, resting his forehead against mine as we both sucked in deep breaths. I let go of his hand and rested my hand against his chest, feeling his heart beating as fast as mine was underneath my palm. My eyes met his and I almost melted even more at the way his eyes seemed to be a molten pool of silver. "God you're gorgeous." I blurted. "And I totally get why we couldn't do this before… you're far too hot for me, you totally would have gotten fired." I breathed before stretching up on my toes to kiss him again as his hands slid down my body and came to a rest on my hips before he kissed me back.


	13. Chapter 11

It felt like almost forever before we needed air again.

I couldn't help but stretch out like a cat, arching my back and bringing my hips in a slight bump towards his, my eyes meeting his.

"You're right." He nodded with a smirk.

"I am?"

"I totally would have gotten fired." He said, running his hands down my hips before shifting and sliding his arm around my waist again as we headed into the house.

I laughed. "Well, then it's a good thing that you could exercise such a great deal of self-control."

"It's a gift." He agreed before pausing at a keypad and punching in his security code. The light turned green and he opened his door. "Welcome home darling." He murmured, eyes on mine as he nodded and bent slightly at the waist.

"Thank you my love." I said as I went past him, into the house, finding myself in his kitchen.

He snapped his fingers. "Be right back, I must have lost my mind in a fiery storm of passion. I forgot your bags." He blinked, watching as I stifled a yawn. "Actually… let me show you to the bathroom, you can take a shower or bath and I'll have your things in here by the time you're done."

"Okay." I nodded slightly, giving in to the yawn and covering my mouth with my hand as he headed off, turning on lights as we went.

I hadn't actually been here before. He always managed to drop me off somewhere or come to meet me. All school year long, there were a few times that I would have thought I would have been here for one reason or another but he just found it easier to always spend time with me at Sean's if it wasn't anywhere else that we could be assured of privacy for the fact of the big Academy assignment and the need to hide me from Volto, the school authority band of merry misfits and yes, even from most of the Academy eye. I blinked tiredly, frantically trying to remember what he'd just said about the two doors that we'd passed already.

Were they both closets?

Or was one a closet and one a door to his den…

Wait, was that a bathroom?

Apparently I'd been mumbling under my breath and he stopped in front of me and turned around, kissing the tip of my nose.

"Both closets and yes, that door right there is a bathroom." He said, the corners of his mouth turning up into his millimeter smile. I nodded. "Poor darling, I really wore you out…" he smirked. "We'll explore ways that I can wear you out over the summer." He teased.

"Grab a calendar spot…" I yawned again.

"You won't drown in the tub…" He frowned slightly.

"Had a bath after school actually." I murmured. He smiled before nodding slightly as he ushered me into a bedroom.

"Then make yourself comfortable enough in here for a few minutes and I'll be right back with your bags."

"Okay." I smiled sleepily at him. "Owen, my love."

His face flooded with … well, maybe I broke my Mr. Blackbourne because there was just an intense look of joy on his face at my words and on his face was one of the widest smiles he'd ever showered on me. "I'll be quick, Sang, my darling."

I nodded again and looked around his room, taking in the king sized bed and fireplace with cozy chairs placed close to it. It seemed rather plain, mostly gray and white but as I studied the room more, I could see the accent of maroon buried in almost every turn, throw pillows… blankets on the chairs … the bedding was a black/gray and maroon pattern. It suited him.

I wandered over to his closet, just curious about it.

I knew that Gabriel did everyone's shopping, I was just curious as to if he also spent time organizing Owen's closet so that he would always pick what went together or if he spent his time branching out into his own ideas.

After all…. I smoothed my hand down the skirt of the dress I was wearing today…. He did pick out the dress I was wearing. I was suddenly feeling far more tired than I had in weeks.

Usually I was a very good sleeper on weekends but with the test schedule I had and my occasional nightmare, I just hadn't slept much in the past two weeks and the thought of waiting for him to return just to change into pajamas was far too much work as far as I was concerned.

I ran my hand over a line of perfectly arranged and lined up shirts in his closet. I tilted my head and studied them.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time I hijacked something to sleep in from one of my boys.

I yawned again as I undid my dress and shimmied out of my bra. I reached for what seemed like the one black shirt in his closet and slipped it on. It fell to about mid-thigh and I buttoned most of the middle buttons, leaving my underwear on underneath. I had the slight presence of mind to hang up my dress, tucking my bra in with it, draping it on the bar of the hanger.

I slid the heels off that I was wearing, letting my toes wiggle into his carpet before I padded over to his bed and sat down on it. It was seemingly very comfortable and I don't quite remember what happened next.

Only that I definitely did not see or hear him come into the bedroom because I had fallen fast asleep.


	14. Chapter 12

**~A~**

Owen could only smirk at his bed in amused silence.

She'd fallen asleep, he'd taken too long to return with her bags but he could see she'd found a shirt to sleep in.

He'd probably never wash it again.

It would always be hers to borrow when she slept over.

His body reacted to the thought and he busied himself mentally playing a violin concerto in his head, trying … slightly… unsuccessfully to tamp down his body's response to his girlfriend sleeping in his bed.

In his shirt.

Hair tousled and spread all over on his pillows.

She was sleeping on his favored side of the bed but he found he didn't mind at all. He reluctantly pulled away from watching her sleep.

Feeling slightly like a creeper.

To go into his closet and set her bag down on a chair before hanging the garment bag in an open spot in the rack. He grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms and a well-worn t-shirt to sleep in and went to change, getting ready for bed before he made a sweep of the house, making sure that all the windows and doors were secured and the alarms set before he headed back up to his room, turning the lights off and making his way to the bed.

He slid his glasses off, cleaning them slightly before setting them down on the night stand. He made sure the alarm was off.

He was sure that he wouldn't really sleep tonight, distraction filling him at the thought of sharing his bed. But if she was sleeping soundly with no dreams he definitely did not want her to wake up needlessly. He pulled the covers back, working quickly to shift her under the covers before he slipped into bed next to her, on his side to look at her again as she slept.

His heart thundered in his chest and he came to the realization that he was more than sure he'd do everything he could to protect her. To ensure she was happy and always knew she was loved. He regretted the way that he'd been rather cold and unfeeling towards her at the beginning. He'd not really noticed the shift in his feelings towards her until she risked everything to save him and the boys from the clutches of Muriel.

The way her hands had slid down his bare torso in her attempt to figure out how to free him… He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He'd felt far too much that day and it had been a jolt to his system. Even if he did have to mask it and hide it from his brothers at that point.

But Sean knew.

His oldest and dearest friend in the world had seen right through the bluster and the constant need to hold himself most formally in an effort to keep his feelings for his darling at bay and hidden.

He'd been quite vocal about pushing Owen to realize and face his feelings.

He supposed he'd have to than him at some point.

Owen sighed softly and shifted, settling a bit farther in the bed, stilling as Sang stretched slightly before shifting and rolling over onto her other side, cutting off his view of her beautiful face and presenting instead to him a view of her rear end, his shirt riding up and exposing the lacy panties she was still wearing.

He groaned softly, tucking his hands under his head for a moment as he closed his eyes, falling into Kota's habit and hurriedly counting.

He reached 50 and opened his eyes only to find that his desire for her had not lessened one bit.

He reached 100 and resigned himself to his fate before reminding himself that he was no longer her teacher. That if he had his way about it, he'd never teach her formally anything at all ever again.

He reached out and pulled her into his arms, pulling the covers up around them as he snuggled in, curling up behind her, his body position mirroring hers as he spooned up behind her, one hand tucking behind her head as part of her pillow and his other hand wrapping around her waist and pulling her back slightly into him as he nuzzled his nose into the crook of her shoulder, her hair tickling his nose as he breathed in her scent.

"good night darling." He whispered, pressing a kiss to the curve where her collar bone met her neck and closing his eyes, letting his senses fill with every essence of her before he took a few deep breaths, clearing his mind and letting himself doze off.


	15. Chapter 13

I woke up Saturday morning, wrapped up firmly in a pair of arms.

I hadn't dreamed, I was slightly embarrassed that I'd fallen asleep before he had joined me in his room. I felt his lips graze the curve of my ear. "Good morning my love."

"Good morning darling. You slept well?" he asked, I smiled, knowing he full well knew the answer as I was pretty sure I'd slept in his arms all night long.

"Yes." I said as his hand relaxed and flattened against my stomach. "You have a very comfortable bed."

He chuckled in my ear. "Well, you are sleeping on my side of it."

"Sorry."

"You're not sorry." He said in my ear, kissing it again. "It's fine. I didn't have any issues falling asleep."

I patted his arm, getting him to loosen his grip on me so that I could roll over, shifting my hair back so that it didn't whip into his face as I settled in, and looking at him. "Good." I said, reaching over and resting my palm on his cheek. "It's high time you get caught up on your rest as well." I said.

He shifted his head, kissing the palm of my hand. "It'll be nice to finally settle in to what is our usual normal." He said. "This year wouldn't have been so exhausting if we had been able to have the same type of school week a normal group of students did. Weekends off and all. That was the worst part of all, always having to deal with a tail on weekends." He admitted.

I nodded slightly. "And a few other unanticipated distractions." I murmured, my eyes searching his, realizing I rarely saw him without his glasses.

He smiled. "True but to be honest, none of us would have wanted it any other way, darling." He said before kissing me lightly.

"As long as you don't regret it."

His eyes softened. "I don't. Do you?" he asked softly.

"Not at all." I murmured. "You all saved me from more than one horrible fate this year. We certainly wouldn't be having this conversation if you hadn't." I said frankly, knowing full well that without them, if I didn't die after Friday Fall or after Jade attacked me in the showers, I absolutely, firmly, believed that my step-mother would have killed me without a shred of remorse and Marie gleefully would have kept the secret of what happened to me.

He nodded slightly. "Knowing that, makes it all worth it. We have you." I smiled as he pulled me in even closer and kissed my forehead.

"Whatever are we going to do today?" I asked, resting my head on his chest.

"Well, we should probably fit in some grocery shopping for tomorrow's brunch." He said, resting his chin on the top of my head.

"Oh yes, I'd like to make an apple pie for Sean for brunch. He's been working too hard again and I think the pie will help me enforce to him that he needs to take some time for himself this summer." I said.

He chuckled. "Did you already have a meal plan in mind?" He asked, recalling that it had been her suggestion to have brunch and a family meeting.

"Maybe." I giggled softly.

"Then I will be happy to push the cart, pay for the food and carry the bags."

"Okay." I smiled, tilting my head up to look at him. "Then what?"

He suggested a few things, letting me know of the plan to go out to dinner and then to attend the opera. He smiled at my breathed 'oh my'. "But perhaps we should start with getting out of bed and going for some breakfast before the grocery shopping." He said, having heard the sound of my stomach rumbling its usual morning greeting to let me know I was hungry.

"Sounds like a good plan." I nodded eagerly.

He shifted as I pushed away from him and got out of the bed. "I must say as well, you look very good in my shirt." He said, reaching over for his glasses on the nightstand.

"Sorry. I just sort of helped myself to your closet." I blushed softly. He shrugged. "I do tend to do it to the others as well."

He smiled. "It's not a big deal, darling. I want you to be comfortable here and if that means stealing my shirt every once in a while, it's a good thing."

"Okay." I said, stretching for a moment, missing the way his eyes swept my body. "Just curious, how well do you see without your glasses?" I asked.

He thought for a moment. "Pretty well… better than Kota sees without his." He said.

I nodded. "Just wondering." I said again before going to his closet to pull my clothes out of the bag and find my make-up bag. "I can go to the other bathroom if you want me too." I said.

"No, go ahead. I'm going to go turn the coffee pot on and grab the paper so it's okay for you to go ahead and get ready first." He smiled and got out of bed, coming over to kiss me lightly. "We'll leave in about 45 minutes. I do need to check in with the family on a few things this morning before we go out."

"All right." I clutched my things to my chest and grinned stupidly up at him before he chuckled and nudged me towards the bathroom before heading downstairs. I waited to hear his footsteps on the stairs before a soft giggle escaped me and I practically skipped the rest of the way into the bathroom to get ready for today.


	16. Chapter 14, part 1

We went out for breakfast, going to one of our usual spots and earning a pleased look from our usual waitress at the fact that we sat on the same side of the booth. Owen nudged me in first and slid in after me, casually draping his arm over the back of the seat until we'd ordered. Once she walked way, he dropped his hand on my shoulder and pulled me in for a deep kiss.

We stayed cuddled up all through our meal, declining a box for our leftovers and heading on the rest of our errands.

Once we got back to his house, I shooed him off to do whatever he'd normally do on a free Saturday while I put the groceries away and made a quick list of what needed to get done for tomorrow's brunch, starting with making pie crust for both Sean's apple pie as well as the quiche I planned on making. There would be plenty of food for my boys to eat even if they didn't want quiche. I suspected the list of quiche eaters would be limited but maybe they'd surprise me and all try a bit.

I glanced up as I was finishing up with the dough, surprised to find him in the kitchen. "Nothing else to do today?"

"No, not really. I'd rather just be close by…"

I smiled. "Well in that case, maybe you could help me with cutting up the veggies for the veggie tray?" I asked. He grinned at me and nodded, getting everything out to start on what I'd asked.

We worked side by side, mostly in silence but having bursts of conversation as we spent time together and getting to know each other even better. I made us lunch after the quiche and pie came out of the oven and we went out to eat on his patio.

I could hardly eat for a bit. I was enchanted with his garden. It was full of roses and other flowers in full bloom. "Oh, Owen… it's so beautiful out here." I murmured, glancing at him to find him watching me intently.

He smiled then and I sensed he'd been a bit worried about my liking it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I just might be coming over here all the time just to sit out in the garden." I teased.

He chuckled. "Eat your lunch darling. There will be plenty of time this summer to be in our garden."

My eyes widened and my gaze shot back to his, peering at him just as intently as he'd been watching me. His eyes held my gaze, soft molten sliver twinkling at me. "You honestly mean that…" I blinked first. "You… me… all of us. What's mine is yours and all that…" He inclined his head slightly, agreeing with me silently. "Without requiring anything of me. No limits or restrictions…"

He leaned forward and captured my hand, bringing it up and brushing the gentlest of kisses to my knuckles. "It's called unconditional love, darling." He said softly, his thumb rubbing the tips of my fingers as he held them loosely in his grip while he watched me, processing a reaction to his words. He knew that I had never experienced love that way until now.

Until the boys.

"And you will find that we all feel that way about you. It's the way our team has always run."

"Taking turns buying lunch or taking me shopping and Victor pays." I said softly, nodding.

"Groceries, feeding anyone…" He nodded.

"I get it, it's just a tad bit overwhelming still… I know I could never repay…."

His finger landed on my lips, cutting me off. "Exactly." He said softly. "No one expects you to repay, we are repaid by the simple fact that you love us and want to be part of our family." He smiled, moving his finger and cupping my cheek. "Dear sweet beautiful darling… we just want you…"

"I can handle that." I admitted on a shaky breath before leaning in and kissing him.


	17. Chapter 14, part 2

We headed in after lunch, settling in the living room… he was checking something or other on his iPad and I settled with my Kindle, figuring if he was this relaxed about things then so was I. We clearly had plenty of time before we needed to go to the Opera.

I glanced up, blinking at the fact that he'd settled right next to me on the couch, he smiled and shifted even closer, moving my legs over his lap… like all the boys did, so that while I was still sitting on the couch, I was mostly on his lap as well.

I smiled. "Lonely my love?" I smirked at him.

He chuckled. "Something like that." He commented before we both fell into easy silence, just sharing space. I lost track of time at that point, he squeezed my ankle to get my attention form where I was gazing in almost a trance at my kindle. "Time to get ready if we're going to make our reservation before the opera." He said. "Go ahead and get ready in the master bathroom." He said, letting me swing my legs off of his lap.

"You're sure I have enough time?"

"Of course." He nodded a small nod at me and I smiled, bending down briefly to steal a quick kiss before I headed upstairs to his room and quickly gathered everything I needed.

I almost was laughing myself silly on the way to dinner.

My hair had been twisted up into the up do that Gabriel had showed me last night and I was quite pleased that my make-up looked exactly as he'd told me to do it too. Owen had been very much speechless when I met him downstairs, his gaze sweeping me at least twice as he tried to find words to express his appreciation.

My dress was maroon and looked very classic, slightly high neckline but the back had a large cut out and when I turned to walk in front of him on my black heels, clutching my silver clutch purse, I'd heard his sudden gasp and I looked over my shoulder at him.

"You're amazing." He finally found something to say. "And even more beautiful than last night."

I smiled softly at him and reached my hand back for his as we headed out to the car he'd hired for the night. "Thank you my love."

He waited for me to get in the car first and settled again rather closer to me, his arm around me.

Needless to say, I very much enjoyed the ride into downtown Charleston to the Opera House.

Just couldn't stop giggling at how much of my lip-gloss was on his face and I quickly wiped it off of him and reapplied more to my lips.

The opera, much like the movies last night, was fascinating.

I was happy to find that I didn't have a hard time following the story line and marveled instead at the singing talent displayed. We talked about it as we went a few doors down from the Opera House for dessert.

I definitely, enjoyed dessert. There's just something about chocolate cake that makes everything be about as perfect as it can be.

Wanting to be sophisticated, I had regular coffee and Owen was busy trying to keep himself composed as he watched me try the coffee the way he liked his. I'm sure the look of distaste that appeared on my face would keep him amused for … oh, probably years.

He pushed the sugar and cream towards me. "Just keep adding… You'll get it fixed the way you can drink it soon."

He wasn't wrong about that.

It just took about 5 more sugars and the entire rest of the cream in the container before I could handle it.

"So… six sugars and …" He peered into my cup. "Enough cream to make it look like pale chocolate milk?" He teased.

"Whatever…" I rolled my eyes at him. "You can't be serious in that you've always liked your coffee with one sugar and just a bit of cream." I said.

He shrugged before smirking. "True, but that honestly just explains the fact that most of the time I prefer tea."

I laughed and ate more of my cake before trying some of his crème brulee, finding that I liked that just as much.

He paid and helped me out of my chair when he saw me yawn. "Time for us to head home then…"

"I really did enjoy myself." I said as he slid his hand down my spine to rest at the base of it, the warmth of his hand warming the skin there that was exposed by the cut out of my dress. I shivered once as we went out the door, not really because I was cold but more from anticipation and the idea that I couldn't hardly seem to get enough of him now that we were unrestricted by the bonds of teacher and student.

"Are you cold, darling?" He asked, not waiting for an answer before he shrugged out of his suit coat and draped it around my shoulders before claiming me back again, pulling me into his side as we walked.

"I'm certainly not cold now." I said softly, smiling up at him when he looked down at him, his head tilted towards mine as we walked. He smiled back as we approached the car, waiting again for me to get in before he joined me in the backseat.


	18. Chapter 15

We talked in the car on the way home. We kissed some… well, a lot.

He seemed to be very capable of curing my giggles the way Dr. Sean cured my giggles.

Owen was very, VERY capable at applying the method.

I rested a palm on his chest as the driver made the way the last few blocks to the house. I looked up at him through my eyelashes. "Thank you for another quite lovely evening, my love."

The millimeter smile quirked the edges of his lips up. "The pleasure was definitely all mine, darling." He reached out, tucking a strand of hair back behind my ear before letting his fingers trail down my cheek. "I had the best looking date on my arm."

"I have an excellent stylist." I teased and he chuckled.

"Yes, Mr. Coleman certainly does his job well."

The car came to a stop in the driveway and Owen got out first, holding his hand out for me to take as he escorted me clear of the car before tipping the driver. He wrapped his arm around me as we headed into the house. I waited for him to undo the alarm before walking into the house and turning to kiss him lightly, his coat slipping from my shoulders to the floor as he groaned against my lips and tugged me even closer into him.

His hand slid up into the hair at the base of my neck as he bent my head, tilting it so that he could have a different angle to kiss me, his tongue swiping teasingly at my lips until I parted my lips with a sigh and welcomed the way he was deepening the kiss. My arms snaked up his chest until I was able to wrap them around his neck, tugging him closer. "Owen…" I groaned softly against his lips before I bit lightly at his lower lip and took charge of the kiss myself, leaning into him more.

"Sang." His voice was deep, husky with emotion as we broke apart, our eyes meeting without blinking as our breathing leveled out. I could feel his heart racing just as I heard my heartbeat thumping in my ears. "Sweet, darling, beautiful one…" he murmured.

I sighed, moving my arms from around his neck, wrapping them instead around his shoulders as I cuddled in for a hug, easily resting my head on his chest, thanks to the heels I was wearing. My ear was pressed to his chest and I listened to his heart beating as well as the deep breaths he was taking. My breathing matched his. "I love you." I murmured. "I never thought it was possible…"

"What?"

I shook my head slightly, closing my eyes and squeezing him tighter.

"Sang…" He managed to get his hand between us and tilted my chin up with two fingers under my chin so that he could look into my eyes. "Miss Sorensen…"

A shiver rattled through me at the use of his formal greeting.

And the commanding tone of voice… that struck a chord deep within me.

I wanted to please this man.

With all my being, I loved him so much … loved all of them so much … that I couldn't fathom the idea of disappointing him.

His eyes searched mine until he seemed to find something in my gaze and his eyes eased in their intensity, melting slightly as he looked at me. "What did you mean?"

I stared up at him, my emotions swirling in confusion and chaos inside me. "No one loves me…" I blurted. "No one ever has." I swallowed, forcing the lump that appeared in my throat down. "Maybe my grandparents…" I said. "But that was before I was 9 and … that's when everything started changing. I… I don't know what I did to draw this fate in life but somehow, we ended up here and well, most of the time I don't know what to say or do because I'm overwhelmed, stunned and surprised that every last one of you loves me. And I love all of you with every single tiny bit of my being."

He looked like he wanted to say something but held back when I gave him a slight smile.

"I don't know what to do in relationships." I said softly. "I've loved every moment of this weekend with you because we don't get much time, not like I get with the boys." I nibbled my lower lip for a moment until he swiped his thumb across it, interrupting me from worrying it as he frowned slightly. "I just get nervous about next steps." I admitted. His eyes softened again. "I just don't want to disappoint anyone or lead them on… I have heard stories about girls that do that." I babbled slightly.

He let go of my chin and leaned down to press a gentle kiss to my forehead. "Dear sweet Sang." He murmured. "Always worried about us." I nodded, looking up at him again. "We'll figure it out all together. None of us come from homes where we've seen relationships that work either." He reminded me. I tilted my head and waited for him to continue. "And while some of us have had a relationship or two, most have not. So we don't really know what to do with a long term relationship either." He said, kissing my forehead again. "So trust me, Sang, when I say we do have things to figure out together. A lot of that will depend on you and how you want to take this relationship along. We're going to follow your lead."

I wrinkled my nose at him and pouted slightly. "Really? Are we going to go back to that thing where I have to make the first move with someone before anyone will do anything again?"

He chuckled and bent his head down more to steal an actual kiss from my lips. "No darling, I just mean that we'll figure things out even if it takes us all summer to do so."

I relaxed then in the hug that I still had him wrapped up in as he let his hands go around my shoulders, resting them on top and giving me a gentle shoulder massage. "Okay. I can work with that." I sighed.

"Then we will too." He said, deciding to shift conversation and the end of their evening to something safer… since I was clearly not fully sure of what would come next. "Why don't you go take a bath and get ready for bed? We can read or talk more…" His eyes shifted to check the clock. "Morning will come soon enough and I know you are planning on making a few things in the morning before we actually eat. I don't think the boys will stay away until the time we set as they do know my door is always open especially when we are going to have food and a meeting." He chuckled.

"Okay." I nodded. "I do have things to do before we can eat." I smiled up at him. "Who's going to show up first?" I asked.

He chuckled. "Are we taking bets?" he asked.

I pursed my lips. "Not really bets so to speak." I said, thinking about it. "It could be like when we race in the pool." I said. "A favor or something you want if you win… Like Silas always asks for a hug… or Kota gets me to make lunch for a week."

He nodded slightly. "Might need to limber up for some races in the pool then…" He smiled. "That sounds like a plan… so if I win, you'll come make me dinner next week."

I narrowed my eyes at him slightly. "Okay. And if I win, then we get to watch another Audrey Hepburn movie one night next week, here." He nodded, accepting the terms. "So, who's going to be here first?"

He pursed his lips. "Sean… Dr. Green will definitely beat them all here."

I shook my head. "No, too many variables." I scoffed. "He might get held up at the hospital. I'm going to say Victor. Gabriel was going to be at Luke and North's tonight and come with them so he's the one that doesn't have to pick anyone up tomorrow."

"Oh, it's on, my darling."

I smiled innocently up at him. "May the odds be ever in your favor…" I teased, using a line from one of my favorite books before going up on my toes to kiss him before I stepped away, bending to pick up his coat and give it to him as I headed up to take a bath and get ready for bed.


	19. Chapter 16

As tempting as it was to slip into his shirt again after my bath, I chose the safer route and wore the pajamas that Gabriel had packed for me. They were mostly gray and I rolled my eyes at that. But they did have a tiny floral pattern in pink across them. I gathered up my things from the bathroom, leaving it as neat as it had been before as I slipped out into the bedroom, my wet hair still up in a bundle with a towel on the top of my head.

I encountered Owen's slightly amused look as he took in what I looked like. I arched an eyebrow at him. "Something wrong?" I asked.

"Oh no, darling." He shook his head. "Nothing at all wrong." I narrowed my gaze at him and went to put my things away, hanging the dress up again in the closet before I went to settle on the bed, sitting cross legged with my kindle nearby and my brush in hand. He watched me dry my hair a bit more with the towel before setting it aside and starting to work on the tangles. "Can I do that for you?" He blurted and I turned to look at him again, finding his eyes locked on me, a look that I couldn't quite identify on his face.

"You want to brush my hair out?" He nodded. "Okay but we just won't tell Gabriel that you did it… I'm not sure how possessive he is of my hair when it's family."

He gave me the millimeter smile.

It was a darn good thing that I was already sitting down because that smile alone would have weakened my knees until I had to sit down.

He kissed my temple as he eased the brush out of my hand before he settled behind me on the bed and took over brushing out my hair. It was almost enough to lull me into falling asleep.

Almost.

"There." He said, smoothing his hand down the back of my hair when he'd finished. "All done."

I tilted my head up and back to look up at him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." He said, leaning over me and dropping a kiss on my lips before he got up and headed to get himself ready for bed while I put my brush away and put the towel into the hamper.

I settled on the bed, propped up by pillows – including his. I smiled and rolled my shoulders for a moment before swiping my kindle open and pulling up the book I was reading earlier. A swirl of spring fresh soap scent filled the room as Owen came out of the bathroom, still toweling off his hair as I glanced up at him from my comfy spot against the pillows. "Hey." I smiled.

He arched an eyebrow at me, corners of his lips tilting slightly upward. "All the pillows?"

I smirked. "Yup."

"Seems a bit selfish of you."

"I was missing my most favorite pillow of the weekend." If I didn't see it, it wouldn't have believed it but his cheeks tinged slightly pink and I tilted my head to look at him.

He snorted slightly before chuckling. "I see." He pushed up the corner of his glasses before coming to slide into bed with me, raising me up and reclaiming part of the pillows for himself before he settled me back against him. "Still comfy?"

I sighed softly and shifted against him. "Yes."

"Good." I felt him shift slightly and figured he was reaching for his phone or a book to read.

I turned my head to look at him for a long moment, distracted from my book with his nearness. I shifted and kissed his cheek. He certainly was doing a lot of eyebrow raising tonight, I mused. I shrugged a shoulder. "Nothing special, just felt like it." He smiled and returned the gesture, kissing my cheek.

We read in silence for a while until I realized he'd stopped turning pages. I carefully turned, finding his eyes closed, arm still around me loosely but his book was propped against his chest as if saving his place.

I was delighted.

I always…. ALWAYS… fell asleep first no matter who I was with.

Other than that one time that North was napping before Luke and I drew on him but that was different, that wasn't at night before bedtime.

I knew they all did it, they waited for me to fall asleep because that way they could be sure that I was not going to toss and turn too often. I reached for his book, pulling the magnetic bookmark from where he'd put it over the front cover so that I could mark his place. I set the book on the nightstand and bit my lower lip for a moment before I reached for his glasses.

I slid them carefully off his nose, folding them up before setting them carefully on top of the book. I managed to turn the light off without disturbing him and I couldn't resist, brushing my lips lightly against his before I shifted, sliding down into the bed more, my back to him in the same positioning that I'd woken up in that morning, wrapping one of his arms around my waist as I settled in.

I drifted off to sleep… happy and content in his arms – even if he was already asleep… spring scent filling the air as it settled me and helped to put me to sleep.


	20. Chapter 17

The air shifted and I woke up.

A swirl of citrus and ginger joined the spring clean scent as the bed sunk for a moment and I glanced over my shoulder at the alarm clock. "What are you doing here at 3 am?" I whispered at him.

"What are you doing awake at 3 am, Pookie?"

"Someone woke me up." I raised an eyebrow at him when he turned to look at me.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to."

"So you just thought you'd sneak into bed with us?" I asked, trying to keep things under control and not wake Owen up. "We'd just be surprised in the morning?"

"Oh Pookie, come on…" He almost whined, a yawn surprising him and cutting him off. "It's been a long day, I just thought I'd be better off to sleep here instead of trying to wake up on time and get here for brunch." He scrubbed his hands over his face, tiredly and rolled his shoulders.

"There's a spare room."

"Really?" he looked at me. I shrugged. "You never seem to sleep alone with only one person."

I tilted my head at him. "You mean, like I do at your house?" he blinked and pursed his lips. I rolled my eyes in the dark. "You're right though. I never sleep alone really and there's never less than two dogs in my bed." I smiled. He smiled back. "But I know you don't crawl in with Owen when it's just the two of you."

"You do?" he teased.

"Pretty sure he doesn't allow it."

His eyes lit up for a moment though. "Pookie… you called him Owen…"

I wrinkled my nose at him. "In private and when it's the three of us … we'll see how it goes."

Sean yawned again. "It's a start." He said. "So, Pookie, sweetie, can I please occupy the other side of this bed that you're not in?" He leaned back on the bed, looking up at me.

"Fine… but you have to sleep." I cautioned him. "You're going to get more than 4 hours of sleep this time." I said in a stern whisper.

"Maybe."

I put my hands on his cheeks, cupping his face in my hands. "It's an order from Nurse Pookie." I stated firmly. "There is no maybe. You're going to fall asleep and stay in bed until at least 9:30…" I scowled at him.

"okay." He said, blinking up at me.

"And don't wake Owen up."

"For a kiss."

I raised an eye brow at him. "This isn't a negotiation, Sean." He shrugged. I sighed softly. "Fine. A kiss then you change for bed and sleep." He smiled. I shifted, not letting go of his face before I bent down and kissed him lightly.

He smiled at me. "Now I can sleep." He stated.

"You know the conditions."

"Yeah but Owen's awake."

I blinked and shifted, letting go of him and turning to see Owen's eyes glinting at us. I bit my lower lip. "Sorry." I said.

"It's okay darling." His tone relaxed me and I smiled. "I know it's not your fault."

Sean seemed to have gained some energy and I felt him almost bounce off the bed. "Be right back Pookie." He grinned. "And seriously, you don't think Owen and I share a bed on a regular basis?" he asked, wandering towards the bathroom and unbuttoning his shirt as he walked.

My eyes were wide as I looked at Owen and then at his back as he crossed the room.

"Shut. Up. Sean."


	21. Chapter 18

I wiggled back against Owen, laughing softly when he huffed a soft sigh against the back of my neck and settled me more firmly back in place.

"Now this will not do." He sighed. "He is going to be a problem, isn't he… thinking he can just crawl in bed with us." He muttered.

I laughed again. "He doesn't sleep much so maybe it would be good to use it as a negotiation to get him to sleep more." I said.

"Maybe." He sighed, leaning in and kissing my neck at the curve of where my shoulder met it. "At least it's 3 am…"

"We might as well face it, Owen." I said with my own sigh.

"Face what?" He asked as Sean came back into the bedroom, now dressed in pajamas and heading for the other side of the bed.

"Sean is our child and we must be patient as we raise him." I said with a straight face as Sean looked at me in surprise.

He blinked before getting into the bed. "I don't think I agree with that statement." He said, pulling the covers up and rolling onto his side looking at me.

"Oh but you are crawling into bed with us at 3 am like a toddler goes to mommy and daddy after a bad dream."

"She does have a point."

Sean rolled his eyes. "No…" he shook his head.

"Well, you will need to watch how often this happens or I'll never get any sleep because everyone will think they can crawl in bed with me." I said.

He snorted before laughing. "Pookie, I think they do that already." He pointed out.

"He has a point."

"Hush you." I reached back and poked Owen in the ribs. "I'm trying a new negotiation but if you're going to interrupt then I'm going to have to force one of you to explain to me how often you sleep together." I pressed my lips together tightly to try to not giggle as I heard the sudden intake of breath from Owen behind me and at the stunned look on Sean's face.

Sean propped himself up on one elbow and glared at Owen. "She's learning this from you." He accused. "We give you 2 nights alone and she's like this. Next thing you know, she'll be giving hours as punishment and making us all call her Miss Sorenson." He pouted.

"She will not." He denied swiftly.

I smirked at Sean.

"OH this will not do at all." He sat up in bed and ran his fingers through his hair, tugging on the curls until they stood up.

"You shouldn't have cost me a bet then." I scowled at him.

"You bet?"

I nodded. "On who would show up first." I said. "You've clearly beaten Victor here." I pouted.

Owen chuckled behind me. "I propose an amendment. If Mr. Morgan shows up first at a normal time then it will be a draw." He said. "You'll still come make me dinner next week but we'll watch a movie as well as you requested."

I pursed my lips before turning and looking over my shoulder at him. "Okay. That's a good idea." I said, smiling as he leaned in the rest of the way and kissed me.

"Sealed with a kiss and Sean is our witness." He said before settling me back against his chest, one arm wrapped around my waist as he looked at Sean over my shoulder.

"Oh and excellent idea." He nodded. "I should seal the witnessing with a kiss as well." He scooted closer, leaning in and pressing his lips to mine gently.

I closed my eyes and sighed against his lips. I hadn't gotten much time at all with him lately. School had been so crazy that I'd barely seen him in class even. My lips parted under the pressure of his tongue swiping against them and I kissed him back.

Owen cleared his throat behind me and I blushed as I pulled away. "Sorry." I murmured, ducking my head slightly.

"It's okay darling." Owen soothed.

"My fault this time, Pookie. Guess we'll need to consider hammering out a bit of bed sharing etiquette."

I giggled.

"But all bets are off when it comes to giggles" He said seriously. I pressed my lips together firmly and nodded. He smiled but yawned in the middle of it.

"Bedtime for sleepy doctors." I said, letting Sean settle onto the pillow more. I rested my hand on top of Owen's hand as it rested flat on my stomach, offering the other hand to Sean. "Goodnight." I murmured.

He took my hand and kissed the back of it before lacing his fingers through mine and resting our hands between us. "Goodnight Pookie… Owen…" he murmured as his eyes already were starting to close.

I heard Owen's breathing level out behind me as I watched Sean fall asleep. I just wanted them to be asleep before I closed my eyes again and drifted off myself.


	22. Chapter 19

I woke up a few hours later, finding myself still wrapped up and entangled with my boys. Owen still had me snuggled in tightly with his arm around my waist. Sean however had snuggled even closer in sleep, one leg thrown over mine as he cradled my hand and arm close as though it was his teddy bear.

Wiggling out of bed this morning was going to be a bit trickier than I thought at first.

Needing to use the bathroom was going to make me work quicker than I'd like.

Also, it meant that I didn't have the luxury of waiting for either of them to wake up and to be honest, I was feeling rested and refreshed inspite of the middle of the night conversation with Sean and Owen. I tilted my head and stared up at the ceiling. To be completely honest, it had been rather nice to have a conversation with the two of them in bed.

I had teased Sean, saying that there always were two dogs in my bed at home, seeing as they referred to themselves as dogs while I was a bird. But I never talked with the other boys in bed. They seemed to just want to let me fall asleep, cuddle up and make me talk to them if I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night but I couldn't recall the last time I'd actually talked about anything with any of them in bed.

Maybe Kota.

I frowned. No, that had just been a question if I'd wanted to save time in the morning and have frozen breakfast sandwiches in the morning.

Gabriel and I had talked clothes. Luke told me stories about Sprinkles the skunk and disclosed the new hiding spots for the chocolate chips. North listened to my nightmares and asked if I still liked him at the end of any day we were together. Victor always made sure that I was happy and nothing electronic was broken. Silas told me cheesy jokes until I was laughing and then complained that I wouldn't let him sleep, making me laugh even more. Nathan and I had just settled into a roommate sort of thing and rarely talked at all in the bedroom.

I frowned again.

Then again, Nathan and I never went to bed at the same time either anymore.

Maybe I'd have to start waiting up for him, relax myself with some reading first. The need to use the bathroom reminded me that I was wasting time thinking when I could have been at least a third of the way out of the bed already. I blew a breath out, puffing my bangs out away from my face before I carefully unwound Owen's arm from around my waist and shifted slightly.

I put his hand up on the pillow and smiled, watching him sleep for a moment.

Perfection.

My love was perfection in sleep, features calm and relaxed as he slept.

I turned my attention to the more difficult task of getting my other arm away from Sean.

Mental note to self…. Get him a teddy bear. He clearly needed one.

I managed to wiggle my hand and arm away from him, replacing my arm with the edges of the pillow, holding my breath as he snuggled in again, eyes still closed as he murmured something nonsensical.

I smiled, patting myself on the back as I gently slithered my way off the bed, pausing to gather the clothes that Meanie had packed for me today and heading into the bathroom. I took a very quick and silent bath, pulling my hair up into a ponytail after I got dressed. I padded quietly back through the bedroom to put my things away and grab my phone. I stopped at the foot of the bed and tilted my head, studying the two men sleeping there.

A sly smirk made its way to my face as a smug thought stole into my mind and I couldn't help it as I raised my camera to take a picture. I made sure that everything was set on silent so that there would be no noises to tip them off to what I was doing. I snapped more than one before I jammed my knuckle into my mouth and stifled a giggle.

I pocketed my phone and headed as quietly as possible downstairs before I allowed myself to laugh at the fact that they'd obviously missed me. They had gravitated towards the middle of the bed while I was gone… and there wasn't any room in the bed between them anymore if I'd wanted to return. I allowed myself another chuckle as I turned on the coffee pot and started to look at my list of things to do this morning.


	23. Chapter 20

I turned off the alarm for a moment while I went outside to get the paper, bringing it back in and resetting the alarm. I laid it at the spot on the breakfast bar that Owen had perched at for a while yesterday, glancing at the clock and guessing there was about 20 minutes or so before he'd be down to join me in the kitchen.

I checked that the coffee was done brewing and then peeked in on the muffins that were baking in the oven. I gave the pancake batter another stir and then moved over to finish cutting up the fruit for the fruit bowl. It was guaranteed to ward off any panic attacks that North was going to have about all the 'sweets' on the table for brunch.

He didn't need to know that there was a honey lime dressing on it.

I pulled my notes out and checked things off on it.

Apple pie. Check.

Quiche. Check. Just needed to actually bake it off in a few minutes.

Muffins. Check.

Pancakes. Batter check, making would wait.

Bacon. Laid out on the pan ready to go in the oven with the quiche.

Sausage patties. Check, ready to re-heat.

Orange juice. Check.

Coffee. Check.

Hot chocolate packets. Check.

Marshmallows. Check.

Iced coffee with cream. Check.

Ice tea. Check.

Fruit bowl. Check

Veggie tray. Check.

I smiled, happy that the list was coming together nicely and moved to the cupboards, pulling out the plates and glasses. I rummaged quietly through the drawers in the kitchens and found cloth napkins and the silverware before I went to the dining room, running my hand over the tablecloth already on the table before I set it, taking great care and pride in arranging the 10 places around the table.

I was happy when it was all perfectly arranged and I went back into the kitchen, pulling the muffins out of the oven and sliding in the bacon to bake instead. I heard footsteps on the stairs and reached out, pulling the coffee mug down that I knew Owen liked to use for his morning coffee and poured him a cup, adding the right amount of cream and sugar to it before I took it over and set it down next to the paper.

Brunch was still a little bit away so I put one of the hot from the oven muffins on a plate and added a spoonful of the fruit. I set it down by the coffee, provided a fork and placed the softened butter and a knife close by. "Good morning, my love." I said, as his spring fresh scent proceeded him into the kitchen. I turned and smiled at him. "Just a little snack if you're hungry." I said, seeing the curious look in his eye as he glanced from me to the counter where I'd put his coffee.

"Thank you darling." Owen smiled and came over to me, wrapping me up in a hug before tilting his head to kiss me gently. "Everything looks great. Are you ready for brunch then?"

"Pretty much." I nodded, stretching and wrapping my arms around his neck before I stole another good morning kiss.

"How early did you get up?" he asked, concerned as he glanced at the clock.

"I've only been up about an hour or so." I shrugged. "It was necessary. Now, drink your coffee and read the newspaper before the rest of our family gets here."

His lips tilted up in his millimeter smile. "Yes darling." He nodded before letting me go and going over to sit and do as I suggested while I cleaned up a few things and finished up what was needed for our family meeting and brunch.


	24. Chapter 21

I was ready.

Everything was out of the oven or warming still and just simply ready.

I glanced at the clock.

Again.

"Darling, it doesn't move faster."

"It should." I pouted and he chuckled before taking a sip of his coffee.

"Tired of me already, I see."

My eyes widened. "Oh no." I shook my head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you aren't enough for me, my love." I bit my lower lip, fingers moving and fluttering in front of me as if they were uncertain about pressing my lower lip into my teeth and he reached over and captured them in his hands.

"Sang, darling, sweet girl." He soothed. "I was teasing. I know that it's strange and unusual for you to not see at least a few of them every day." He reached up and caressed my face. "You're just excited for all of them to arrive and for summer vacation to actually get started." He smiled.

I managed a smile back.

"That's my girl." He said softly, leaning in to kiss me lightly. "Why don't you go and wake Sean up. It's almost 9:30 and I'm sure he'll want to shower and change before the boys arrive."

"He has been very quiet." I nodded, leaning forward to kiss him again before I went to the fridge and found one of the vanilla bottled coffees that I knew Sean favored as I headed upstairs to the bedroom where we'd left Sean sleeping.

I quietly entered the bedroom on tiptoes, not wanting to wake him. I smiled, biting my lips to hold the giggles in from escaping.

Oh… he was definitely still sleeping but I just couldn't figure out how he'd managed to go from being curled up around the pillow the last time I'd looked to basically pretending to be a starfish and was now laying completely spread eagle on the bed, taking up practically the entire bed.

I'd cracked the coffee open on the way up the stairs and I approached quietly, setting it on the nightstand. "Sean..." I said quietly, leaning over the bed and reaching out towards him, intending on shaking him lightly. "Doctor Sean…" My sentence cut off when his hand wrapped around my wrist and I went sprawling over him, my torso landing cross ways over his. "Oof… ugh…" I blinked before giggling.

"Pookie, we've talked about the giggles." He said, shifting and pulling me up along his body until I was wrapped in his arms.

"I was fine until you pulled me into bed." I pointed out, still giggling.

"You shouldn't have snuck up on me." He pointed out before putting a finger on my lips. "No giggles, Pookie. I'm sure you didn't come up here to have a giggle fest with me." I shook his head. "Then again, I do like administering the cure…" He said, eyes lighting up. "And here you are, just ready to be cured of the giggles."

"maybe." I shrugged lightly before laughing as his lips landed on mine and he kissed me quiet. Granted, I'd spent a lot more of the rest of the school year kissing than when we'd initially started off with a few kisses in his bed.

To stop the giggling.

I sighed softly against his lips, moving a little bit and running my hands into his hair as I kissed him back.

Sean ran his hands along my face until I'd pulled away. "You're so beautiful, future Mrs. Green."

I smiled. "Thank you Dr. Sean."

"My beautiful destiny baby…" he smiled and sat up, with me still cuddled into his arms. "I love you."

"I love you too." I said before kissing his cheek lightly. "I came to wake you up because its 9:30 and Owen thought you would want to shower and change before everyone else got here." I patted the opposite cheek. "And you were such a good boy to sleep as long as Nurse Pookie told you to."

He chuckled. "I do like to obey nurse Pookie."

"Oh good. This relationship is totally going to work out then." I teased. "Now get up and shower… I brought you a coffee that you like while you get ready for a family day."

"Thank you." He said, resting his forehead against mine for a moment. "I also like hearing you say family day."

I murmured it several times in a row, making his eyes light up. "Now, come on, Sean… up and at 'em." I teased before slipping off his lap and getting up. "I'll see you downstairs." I smiled at him as he finally got out of bed, wrapping me into a tight hug with a kiss to my forehead before he let me go, grabbing the coffee and wandering his way into the bathroom.


	25. Chapter 22

Owen looked up as I walked back into the kitchen, the sound of the upstairs shower running in the background. "Successful mission…" He smiled, straightening the paper out as he turned the page.

I smiled. "Of course… he's up and out of bed." I frowned slightly. "Not sure how he managed to claim the ENTIRE bed mind you but … okay."

He squinted slightly. "Yeah, well, Sean's always been one to hog the bed if he gets it all to himself."

"So you have shared a bed before…" I quirked an eyebrow at him and giggled.

He rolled his eyes. "A couple missions with tight quarters." He said. "And we did share an apartment for a while. Our schedules were supposed to lend themselves to alternating shifts in the bed." He chuckled. "But on occasion, Sean is known for just needing to crash and he didn't exactly wake me up before deciding to take a section of the bed away from me."

"Ah, fun roommate times then." I laughed fully then and paused as I heard a car pull up to the house. "Someone's here." I perked up and he chuckled before motioning me away to be able to answer the door. "Don't you want to verify who's here first?" I teased.

"I'll hear them." He reassured me and I bolted off, almost dancing as I went to the door and pulled it open, holding my breath in the hopes it was Victor arriving first.

"Hi princess."

I beamed at him before launching myself into his arms. "My prince, you are first … well, second because Dr. Sean arrived at 3 am but …" I shrugged, kissing his cheek as he chuckled and quickly wrapped his arms around me so that he wouldn't drop me as he carried me through the house to the kitchen.

"Mr. Morgan."

Victor smiled. "Good Morning, Mr. Blackbourne." He kissed my forehead and set me down on my feet.

"I won, I won…" I chanted.

Victor watched me and glanced at Owen.

"We made an amendment to our bet from last night when Sean showed up at 3 am."

"So while I still have to make him dinner this week, we get to watch an Audrey Hepburn movie that night too." I giggled, wrapping my arms around Victor's waist and hugging him.

"Sounds like a good bet." He said. "Although, Mr. Blackbourne does liked those movies too so maybe it's not such a bad thing for him." He teased.

I rolled my eyes at him but wasn't able to say anything because another car pulled up and I let go of him to go get the door again.

I was happy.

All my boys were here, filling plates up from all the food that I'd arranged on Owen's center island. I was busy, flipping pancakes to order.

North had tried to take over… tried to tell me I couldn't make chocolate chip pancakes for Luke and myself. Owen had almost intervened but I slapped my palm on the middle of his chest. "North star…." I cooed at him.

"Yes Sang Baby?"

"Are you making brunch for the family this morning?"

His eyes narrowed and he studied me. "Uh, no…" He finally said after a long moment.

"Okay then…" I smiled sweetly up at him. "I am, and you don't get to tell me what to make. I'm putting bananas in your pancakes." I said.

"Thank you Sang Baby." He said, still watching me.

He wanted to say more, I knew it. He wanted to complain and rant about the fact that I was even making pancakes at all with everything else that we had. I heard a few chuckles cutting off behind us as I realized that the other 8 members of our family were watching intently, waiting to find out just what exactly their sweet girlfriend was going to do to their brother… co-boyfriend? I pondered that for a moment. I looked back up at him. "When you make brunch then you can make what you want." I said. "No pancakes at all if you want." He tilted his head looking at me. "But never tell me what I can and can't make for my family." I stated firmly.

He opened his mouth to retort but looked away from me for a moment and I could only assume that he was now facing a glare of mixed emotions from our family. "Okay Sang Baby." He finally said, looking back down at me. I saw the slight shade of worry in his eyes.

I smiled softly up at him. "Thank you North Star." I said. "Do you still like me?" I widened my eyes at him.

"Yes." He said almost on a whisper before swallowing and meeting my gaze head on. "Do you still like me?" He looked as though he was steeling himself for a different answer.

I smiled wider. "Yes." I stated, stretching up and kissing the corner of his mouth. "And that's exactly why I used low fat buttermilk, flax seeds and a low gluten flour in the pancakes." I batted my eyes at him. "Oh and I added a protein powder. See! Lots of healthy stuff to counter balance the fun stuff."

He finally laughed, letting me turn to flip his banana pancakes out on his plate and start my last batch of pancakes for myself as he joined in with the others in filling his plate up at the island and going to find a seat at the table.

"Very well done, darling."

I turned and smiled at Owen. "Thank you my love." He leaned in and kissed my cheek gently before moving to follow Sean around the island as they had waited for the 'younger' boys to fill up plates.

"Yes!" Sean grinned at me. "That was brilliant, Pookie." He winked.

I laughed. "Thank you Sean." He eyed me. "I laughed, it wasn't a giggle." I pointed out, my pancakes finishing in the pan and I arranged them on my plate before turning off the stove. "I'm allowed to laugh if it isn't the contagious giggling." I went over, squeezing between them at the island, not really paying attention to the silence that was coming from the table as the boys all heard me interacting freely and comfortably with Owen and Sean.

"I suppose. We might have to work out an agreement on that later, Pookie." Sean shrugged, scanning the island for things he wanted as he dished food up on his plate.

"We'll see." I smirked at him. "Don't fill up too much…" I said with a saucy wink as I put bacon on my plate and turned to go to the table.

"Why not?" He raised an eyebrow at my wink.

"I made you an apple pie for later." I didn't give him a chance to respond before going to find my seat, glancing with a soft smile at my boys before realizing that they'd left the two seats on left and right of the chair at the head of the table free.

Owen's seat and a spot for Sean and me on either side.

My eyes widened slightly and I eyed them all.

"Oy… come sit over here, Trouble. I want to talk to you about the weekend." Gabriel saved me from having to choose which side as he patted the chair on the left.

"Okay, okay Meanie." I smiled and went to sit down, brushing a hand across Luke's shoulders as he was sitting next to the other open spot.


	26. Chapter 23

_**~A~**_

She truly was beauty in motion. Owen thought as he claimed his seat at the head of the table, watching as she ate and told the boys the highlights of the weekend at the same time before turning it around on them and asking questions about what they'd been up to.

He smiled at her when she looked at him and he inclined his head slightly, seeing no reason she couldn't lead them all into conversation.

It was exactly what happened at the family meetings.

If his darling Sang wanted to lead the charge and get the 'business' out of the way regarding the things that had been done in the past few days since any of them had spoken, then by all means. He wanted her to feel as central as possible in their family. He knew that in spite of their conversation yesterday about the fact that they did absolutely all love her unconditionally, she would want to seek out that confirmation from all of them.

He thought she'd handled things extremely well in the kitchen, bringing the younger Mr. Taylor around and calming him down while exerting a measure of control regarding what he typically tried to do any time he perceived something as not right or unhealthy or … well, that was North's way and Owen had long given up on trying to force him to do anything, choosing instead to plant seeds and thoughts and let him find his own path to the answer.

Looking down the table, he smiled, seeing that each and every set of eyes was focused on Sang while they ate, listening intently to what she had to say and he could see the flickers of interest rippling through each set of eyes. He glanced at Sean and raised an eyebrow at the look on his best friend's face.

For Sean had apparently been watching him, not anyone else.

Sean's eyes twinkled in amusement and he grinned at him before taking as sip of his ice tea and looking at Sang. "Well, it certainly does sound as though the two of you had a good weekend." He said loudly, drawing the attention of the team.

"Oh. I did have a very nice weekend." Sang replied, tilting her head to look at him. "You never said how your weekend was." She commented, ignoring the fact that there had been a bit of chatter at 3 am regarding his work. I smiled slightly and looked 'wide eyed and innocently' at Sean.

"Yes, you should fill us in." I said. "I had been under the impression that you were actually not working after Friday night, Dr. Green." I reached for my coffee cup and took a sip, waiting as his eyes widened slightly and he glanced around for a quick moment. I almost laughed. He was clearly looking to avoid the answer and couldn't formulate a snappy response very quickly.

"Oh you know. The usual." He finally said, his eyes growing guarded and a bit shadowed as he shot me a dark look. "I was supposed to be off but something came up and Phil asked me to work an extra shift or two."

"Didn't you say it was babies?" Kota asked, using one finger to push his glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose.

"Right." Sean nodded excitedly. "Babies." A momentary dreamy look, one that was often on Luke's face, crossed over his features.

"OH! How nice." Sang smiled. "Maybe this week, I could come to see them." She said.

"I think they'd like you to visit, Pookie." Sean said. "Anyway, it was just supposed to be one baby and then I'd leave but wouldn't you know it that three other women came in to have their babies … that's what took so long, I ended up working all day because one of them was in labor for 20 hours and her babies weren't born until just after midnight last night."

"Babies, Doc… as in more than one?" Gabriel looked slightly interested.

"Yes, she knew that she was having twins but was completely surprised to find out that her twins were actually triplets." He chuckled.

"Oh dear." Sang looked slightly distressed. "How did she take the news?"

He grinned at her. "Well, she wasn't exactly happy that she had to get one more of everything before she could take them all home but she seemed happy about it. The surprise baby was a boy but she resisted my suggestions about naming him." He pulled a face, pouting slightly.

"Well what did you expect Sean?" I asked with one eyebrow arched at him. "She didn't know she was having him and you probably weren't her doctor to begin with so why in the world would you think she'd take your suggestions about names?" There was a soft chuckle around the table.

Sean shrugged. "It's okay… They were already naming one of the girls, Shawna so that's close enough for me even if I don't get spelling rights." He smirked and I rolled my eyes at him.

"Well, you do work too hard." Sang said, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. "You all do." She said softly, looking around the table, meeting all of our eyes. "So I really hope that when we talk about scheduling our time together this summer that there is enough opportunity for downtime…" She looked at Sean. "You really need to not work so many hours. Shouldn't your internship and their ability to have you go from one place to another filling in all over the place be almost over?" Her eyes were a little wide as she looked at Sean and slid her eyes over to meet mine for a moment, almost as though she was seeking out the permission to be so bold and demanding.

I felt my lips quirk up in the slight smile that I had been giving her all year and inclined my head slightly. "Miss Sorenson does have an excellent point, Dr. Green." I stated. "Between you and me, we'll spend some time tomorrow looking at the internship agreement. I think you worked a lot more than you should have over the school year. It certainly may mean that you doubled up the internship credits."

"Good idea." Sean nodded. "Thank you for bringing it up to remind me, Pookie." Sang blushed slightly at the look she saw in his eyes.

"Just thinking of my boys…" She said softly.

"You do an excellent job of thinking of us, darling." I said, forgetting the rest of the family was here and looking up at the extended silence that seemed to be attacking the table right now.

Sang smiled at me and glanced at the rest. "Oh knock it off." She frowned. "He's allowed a nickname for me too." She rolled her eyes at them and elbowed Gabriel in the ribs. "As you were… eat…" she waved a hand in the air. "Talk… do whatever but sit there and stare at him. We have a lot to talk about today before Sean can have apple pie." She smiled serenely at them, took a final sip of her hot chocolate and ducked her head, concentrating on cutting up the rest of her chocolate chip pancakes.


	27. Chapter 24

I perched myself on the edge of the couch, studying the large wall across from us. "Impressive." I murmured, getting up and walking over to study the calendar pages that had been taped up to Owen's wall. They'd been torn off of a desk calendar and she could see a few things penciled in.

Father's day.

4th of July

A few random things here and there – Jessica and Erica's birthdays. Charlie and Theo's birthdays. Uncle's. Sean's parent's birthdays and anniversary.

A few concerts that Victor had been unable to get out of as of yet. And a few marked Academy items that I guessed were training or those situational awareness classes that Owen wanted me to attend. I looked over my shoulder.

"Sean… how long have your parents been married?" I asked curiously, watching as his eyes lit up as he glanced at me. I turned to look at him.

"That's an excellent question, Pookie." He thought for a moment and I was amused that he wiggled his fingers while he thought as if counting the years. "Oh…it'll be 30 years this summer." He said.

"That's a long time." I murmured. "Are you planning anything special for them?"

He shook his head. "It's not a party type of situation in Japan." He explained. "I usually take them out to dinner. Usually sushi because it's their favorite." He said.

"Do you take them out on their anniversary?" He nodded, eyes on mine as if wondering what I was going to do with that information. "Would you be opposed to letting me tag along?" I asked softly. "Provided that we are able to try sushi before that day so that I don't embarrass myself at a meal with them?"

Sean's face lit up brilliantly. "That's a wonderful idea, Pookie." He bounded off the couch from where he'd been talking with Luke and Gabriel. He reached for the sharpie pen that we were going to use to mark the set in stone things for the summer and blocked out a three day block, the day before their anniversary and the day after. "They moved a little ways away and we'll need to travel to get to them." He explained before studying the calendar and marking a date part way between today and their anniversary and writing a big note on the day that said: SSS Date… Sean, Sang & Sushi J

I smiled. "Lovely." I said before giggling as he put the pen down.

"Pookie..." He warned, his eyes narrowing in on my lips as I giggled more and didn't try to stop.

"You'll get everyone going and then we won't make it through the meeting." He said, trying to achieve a 'Mr. Blackbourne' tone to his voice.

"Too late." I giggled more, more amused that he was trying to channel his best friend. He caught me off guard to be honest.

When he swooped in and planted a surprise kiss on my lips.

My giggles died off and I moaned softly against his lips, kissing him back. We only stopped kissing when the room fell entirely silent and I couldn't help but look around for a moment, face flushed and blushing a deep shade of fuchsia.

They were all staring.

I wasn't sure why exactly. Everyone had known and bought into the plan so to speak, just around Christmas.

Then I thought for another moment and realized that my desire and need to keep the pictures and information regarding any individual date with any of my boys were really more for the fact that I wasn't sure if they could handle knowing how freely I kissed their brothers.

Or if we chose to take it a little deeper into intimacy, then I didn't want anyone feeling bad that they weren't at that level yet.

I certainly wasn't at that level yet.

Honest.

But if a girl had to daydream and say, yes, if I was to sleep with any of my 9 boyfriends anytime soon, well, I'd be able to give you a list in very short order of who I thought could handle going that far.

Owen, Sean, North and Silas.

That was my top 4, I suspected that perhaps Luke might be on the experienced list if I was making one but I didn't think that he would jump into intimacy the way that those four might.

I gave Sean a slight smile. "I'm looking forward to both the anniversary dinner and our sushi date, Dr. Sean." I pulled my arms away from where he'd clutched them to his chest and he smiled back at me.

"Me too, Pookie." He said, beeping me on the nose with a finger before going back over to take his seat with Luke and Gabriel.

I glanced around the room, seeing various levels of acceptance… interest… love… curiosity and I blushed again before my eyes met Owen's. "Are we ready to actually hammer out the details of the summer?" I asked, smiling at him and straightening the pens and pencils we were going to use

"I believe we are, Sang." He said, moving over to stand by me. He reached out and smoothed my hair down, tucking a few strands back behind my ears and he smiled softly at me before I grinned back at him and went over to plop myself down in Silas' lap with my legs hanging over into North's lap. His hands protectively covered my feet as Silas wrapped his arms around me and steadied me.

"Okay, Aggele Mou?' He whispered in my ear.

"Yes." I smiled at both of them and settled in as Owen double checked what was already on the calendar and started to go around the room, beginning with Kota and asking if there were things he wanted to do specifically during the summer.


	28. Chapter 25

**A/N: Gabriel couldn't manage to contain his language. Consider yourself warned. :)**

From my perch in Silas' lap, I watched and listened as the boys talked, making a list not on the calendar but next to it of things to do.

"Oi… First off, I want to know if Sang is going to kiss all of us when we book time off together." Gabriel stated loudly, looking at me. "Trouble, that's just mean to kiss Doc and not the rest of us when we're fucking sitting right here." He grinned at me to lessen the weight of the words.

I ducked my head for a moment, he was feeding right into my insecurities about how all of this was going to work for us. "Meanie… you got to kiss me more on Friday at school and after school." I said, finally finding the words and courage to say them. I smiled. "All school year actually, you all have gotten way more kisses from me than Sean and Owen have." I pointed out, feeling and hearing the room go completely still at the fact that I'd called Owen by name. I eyed them all for a long moment.

"That is a very fair and valid point, darling." Owen finally said, breaking the silence and I felt his eyes on me and I looked straight at him, sitting up a bit more in Silas' lap.

"Thank you, my love." I almost laughed at the way they all seemed to puzzle at the exchange before Sean's eyes lit up.

"How cute, they even have pet names now." He teased, smirking at us.

I rolled my eyes. "Enough." I shook my head. "Yes, I called him by name and him and I have pet names. I have pet names with all of you so knock it off." I scowled. "Let's get back to business and discuss why Gabriel hasn't asked about scheduling that trip to Disney World you all talked about giving him back around his birthday." I diverted the conversation.

"Oi, that's right." He sat up straight and got up, going to study the calendar. "You fuckers owe me Disney World. Trouble and I want to go to Harry Potter World to at Universal."

I smiled as they all laughed and nodded at him. "Kota, would your mom and Jessica want to go?" I asked quietly, looking at him. The room fell silent again as they looked at me. "I mean, it just doesn't seem that fair to leave Jessica out." I said, cheeks flushing with color as I dropped my gaze to my lap.

"Actually that's a great idea." Kota said and I heard him push his glasses up on his nose again. "She might almost insist on joining us. She might not have any problems with you spending the night with all of us at the house but she might feel differently about hotel rooms."

Victor chuckled. "I was actually just thinking that reserving a condo and a good sized van might work better for us." He commented. "A four bedroom place would let your mom and sister room with Sang and we could divide up into groups of 3 in the other three rooms." He said.

Owen studied the calendar. "We could probably plan a two week trip. If your mom can only go for one week, then that's okay, we can send her and Jessica home at that point or keep Jessica if she trusts us enough." He commented softly, studying Kota.

Kota nodded. "Either way, we could probably check and see if there are any jobs to do while we're down there."

Sean nodded as well. "The Toma team just picked up a couple jobs in Florida earlier this year. Landed another one while they were there." He commented.

I smiled. "So what times are you thinking, Owen?" I asked curiously, watching as he penciled in a two week block before Sean's parent's anniversary and one starting the week after. He added one in late August after considering the calendar a bit longer.

"Is that looking alright to you?" He asked, looking back over and meeting my eyes.

"Sure, looks like a few good weeks there." I smiled.

Kota studied it again and pulled out his phone and retreated into Owen's kitchen to call Erica.

"So we should wait to work on more while he's asking." Nathan commented. "Did we get all our shifts listed on the calendar for the Diner?" He peered at it.

"Looks like it." Luke said. "I'm almost excited to work on Monday, Wednesdays and Thursdays."

"Why's that?" Victor asked.

"Sang's working." He smirked and winked at me.

I shook my head. "Look at that…" I said. "I'm definitely going to be busy. Guess I won't have time to walk much in the woods."

"And get stuck in trees." Nathan winked.

"Or fall into sawdust piles." North scowled and I rested my hand on his head.

"Don't do that, North star." He huffed a sigh.

"Fine, Sang baby."

"Thank you."

We all looked up when Kota came back in and he went to study the calendar for a moment, still talking with Erica on the phone. "Okay Mom, yes, August will work." He said before telling her the dates that were on the calendar and he took the eraser and shifted the August dates by a week. "No worries Mom, yes, we'll take care of the reservations." He glanced up, nodding slightly at Victor. "We're going to find a condo or house to rent, it makes more sense." He said, listening as she shared her agreement. "Of course, Mom." He smirked slightly. "I'll be sure to let you know what Mr. Blackbourne says about your share of the cost." He exchanged a glance with Owen. "All right, Mom. Love you." He hung up and reached for the sharpie instead and marked the vacation time to Florida permanently onto the schedule. "We're settled." He smiled and went back to sit down again.

"No we're not." Gabriel frowned.

"We aren't?" Kota looked at him.

"No…" He shook his head, snapping his fingers in my direction. "Trouble still hasn't given me my fucking kiss yet." He pouted.

I rolled my eyes. "I am not a trained animal." I pointed out. "I don't respond to snapping." Silas barked out a sharp laugh. "And if I can't pout around you then you don't get to pout around me." I stated firmly, narrowing my gaze at him. "But I need you, Meanie. Someone's got to make sure I'm dressed right all the time." I said softly, having watched as the look in his eyes changed while I talked. "And my hair, well that absolutely needs help." I said.

"Damn straight, Trouble."

"So would you go block off some time for a date for us, already?" I rolled my eyes at him before laughing when he realized what I was saying and bolted off the couch to look closer at the calendar.

"Well, you said on Friday you want to go shopping." He mused before blocking off Tuesday of this week for a shopping trip. He eyed it again before choosing a Friday and Saturday block for a couple dates in July. "Okay with you, Trouble?" He asked, turning to look at me.

I got off of Silas' lap and went over to look at the calendar. "Yes, Meanie." I smiled at him and leaned in for a kiss.

He pulled me in, his lips slanted on mine as he kissed me fiercely and I responded to his kiss, only pulling back, once again, at the sound of silence. He kissed my forehead as I buried my face in his chest. "What?" He eyed the guys before smirking. "You better book some time with Trouble or you're all going to be fucking missing out."

I patted his chest and pulled away, looking up at him for a moment before smiling and heading to go sit with Victor for a while.

"Having a good day, Princess?" He asked, settling back in his seat and stretching his arm out behind me as I curled into his side.

"Yes. Did you find a house to rent?" I asked.

"I have a few feelers out." He smiled. "I guess I need to go get my spot in line." He said, studying me for a moment, the fire in his eyes lighting up for a moment. He glanced at the calendar and then back at me. "No one claimed next weekend. Would you like to go on a date with me?" He asked.

"Of course. Do you have something in mind?" He told me that he had an idea and when he told me where he wanted to take me, my eyes lit up and I glanced around for a moment. "Can I propose that we take someone with us?"

He grinned at me. "Anything you want Princess." He said as I nodded and he got up to go mark off the time that he wanted for his plans. I turned and scooted down the couch, landing myself in Luke's lap.

"Hi Cupcake." He grinned at me, pulling me in closer.

"Hi Sugar." I smiled. "I was wondering if you'd like to go with Victor and me on Saturday." I invited. "We're going to a jazz music and food festival."

His eyes lit up. "Really? And it's okay if I come too?"

"Yes." I laughed, running my hand through his hair before tucking the loose strands behind his ear. "I figure that we'll run out of time for me to spend with everyone unless we do a few 'double' dates so to speak."

"I'm in. Food at food festivals is amazing." He got up, setting me on my feet before going over to Victor and they exchanged a soft word that ended with Victor nodding and a smile widening across Luke's face as he wrote his name on the block of time too.

I went to them and kissed each of them. "Thank you." I said before turning towards the others. "There's still time on the calendar. Do I need to just stand here so you can kiss me easier once you claim some time?" I raised an eyebrow at them, laughing when there was a bit of a rush and I found myself shifted off to the side to do just that as the others wanted to get their names down on space.


	29. Chapter 26

"Are you all done now?" I asked, motioning to the calendar pages, glancing at them and then around at my boys.

A mixed chorus of 'sure' and 'ok' and a 'fucking hell yeah trouble' came my way. I rolled my eyes at Gabriel and smiled.

"Okay then it's my turn now." I said, catching the look of surprise that crossed Owen's face. "What?" I asked, turning fully to look at him.

"I guess I'm not quite sure what you mean, darling." He said, running a hand through his hair as he studied me.

"Oh, well, you all got to block off and claim my time but …" I shrugged. "There's a few things that I wanted to do this summer and sometimes I might want to hang out with more than one of you at a time."

"Oh." He nodded slightly. "Then by all means, the rest of the calendar is yours." He said.

"Thank you my love." I smiled and picked up the pink sharpie and turned to study the spots that were open. I turned to face them all. "I just want to say up front that if I mark something here, it may not entirely mean that I only want to hang out with that person. For instance, I want to spend time in the garden here. No matter if Owen is here or not, I like his garden so I don't want to demand his time to stay with me if he's comfortable leaving me here alone." I glanced quickly at him and received a millimeter smile. "But it also means that anyone free is welcome to join me … you just have to realize that I might want to actually work in the garden and you'll be compelled to help or I simply might want to read outside and enjoy the space." I eyed them all until they nodded their agreement. I smiled and turned back to the calendars. I wished they'd talk or not pay so much attention to me but apparently what I had in mind seemed to be entirely fascinating.

"How far away is Tampa Bay from Orlando?" I asked, my eyes on the two week block we were going to be in Florida. I tapped the pen against my lips as Victor answered. "And could you please check the Red Sox vs Tampa Bay for me… hopefully they're going to play each other in August…?"

"Aggele Mou…" I turned to look at Silas and smiled. "Seriously?"

"Yes, Superman. I love the Red Sox too, wouldn't it be amazing if they're playing down there and we could go to the game?" His smile lit up and it warmed me completely. Victor caught my eye and I wandered over to look at what he'd found. "Oooh, that's good." I said before looking up. "Since we'll be in Florida, does anyone else want to go with us? Keeping in mind though that I'm going to the game with Silas and we will sit a few rows in front of you."

"Or behind." Silas teased. "Or in a completely different section."

I marked the date on the calendar as Victor was currently busy securing a pair of tickets a good distance away from the other block of seats he was ordering. I studied the other spots open and I glanced at Owen. "You're going to teach me how to golf, right?"

His eyes lit up. "If you want."

"We talked about it the first time we tailed Hendricks away from the school." I pointed out.

"That we did." He nodded.

"So, is golf always played in a foursome?" I inquired, laughing at the look on his face that said I surprised him with the question.

"Typically." He said.

"Okay, so who would go with us?" I asked, choosing a date in the next few weeks and jotting down the need for a tee time.

"Well, Sean does like to golf, we should probably let him go." I smiled and wrote him in. I could practically hear him surveying the boys. "Either Kota or Victor would be well suited to joining us."

I glanced over my shoulder. "Kota the first time, please." I said, weighing my options. "After the first outing, if I like it enough then the 4th of our group can be determined by drawing." I suggested.

"Sounds good Pookie." Sean said from where he was leaning against the wall.

I grinned at him before marking off a golf time every other week. I tilted my head slightly. One of the weeks would be the second week in Florida, but not the game day. "They've got courses in Orlando, right?" I asked.

"Yes, darling. And I've got an academy membership for a nice one down there." Owen said.

"Perfect." I hummed slightly as I blocked that space off as well. "I figure you like early tee times, right? So you can make these for as early as you'd like and I'll do my best to be awake." I smiled. He chuckled and came over to kiss my temple before he headed into the kitchen to pull together the leftover bacon from brunch and to slice tomatoes and tear lettuce so we could have BLT's for a late lunch once we were done with the 'meeting' things.

I felt Sean's eyes on me and I glanced at him for a moment before blocking off a few hours on Tuesdays … the non-golf weeks… and marking them as a 'help Sean with tidying his office and baby watching' sessions. Earning me a kiss again before he wandered off, yawning, for either a place to crash for a bit or to find where I may or may not have stashed another slice of apple pie for him.

The coming over and kissing me part of the day kept happening as I would schedule an individually tailored outing for one of my guys but having both of us choose someone or just one of the others to tag along with us that day.

There was the abstract art exhibit at the art museum that I just knew Gabriel would want to go to. He also got a shopping day a month set aside, we'd be going with Victor and Luke got penciled in for one of those as well.

There was the Zombie exhibition at the science center. It was sure to feature some of Nathan's favorite zombies and scenes from TV shows and movie sets. I wasn't exactly sure about it but figured I'd be able to clutch tightly to Honey's hand.

I had picked the baseball game for Silas but managed to coax him into scheduling a day where he could take me out on a boat. North was going to go with us for that one and I was hoping that I liked boating enough to do it a bit more often.

Victor was a bit harder for me to choose what to go to. But in the end, I found a symphony concert and blocked that out for the two of us. No one else was interested, well, Owen probably was but we'd be sure to ask him later.

I'd honestly put a lot of work into finding things to do with all of them and I only hoped that I wasn't commandeering any plans that they had for me.

I found a cake decorating class for Luke and me at one of the local craft stores. He was instantly intrigued and after he saw the scheduled topics, he managed to convince me we should go to more than one class and that was how we ended up planning to go to a class every other Thursday together.

I blocked off a few mornings, intending to do nothing more than let North teach me about cars once a month. I might not actually drive them right now but it couldn't hurt to know how to change oil or tires.

And then there was Kota. I walked over and handed him the brochure that I'd picked up. "I was hoping you might be interested." I said softly. He studied the brochure before looking at me in stunned silence. "Is that a yes?" I asked, eyes on his.

He couldn't say anything so settled for nodding his head excitedly. I smiled down at him and went back to block off the day on the calendar. I'd found a science fiction exhibit at the museum. There was going to be a large section on display featuring props and costumes from the Lord of the Rings movies as well as other movies that I knew he loved.

I smiled as I studied the suddenly very busy summer I was going to have. "There, all done." I said, setting the pen down.

They all came and crowded around to look at the schedules as well. It was a general consensus that we'd done everything we could as far as scheduling out our summer. We all headed into the kitchen to fix sandwiches based on what Owen laid out on the counter for lunch.

I was sitting down, nibbling on my BLT and sipping my water when a thought hit me and before I could filter it or stop myself, I blurted it out right then and there, in the middle of lunch, surrounded by all my boys.

"Who am I supposed to talk about boys with?"


	30. Chapter 27

My eyes widened at what I'd said and I dropped my gaze to my plate, feeling my cheeks flame with color as all conversation stopped and I felt the weight of their gazes on me.

9 heated gazes.

The silence was actually nice for the minute it was quiet.

You know, before all hell broke loose and they all talked at once.

"Oi, Trouble, why the fuck you got to talk about god damn boys?"

"Sang Baby…" North's growl was more than enough to say.

"Aggele Mou, there's no need to talk about other boys."

"Peanut, no!"

"We have 10 here, no need for more numbers." I could hear Kota's glasses rubbing against his nose as he pushed them up again.

"Pookie, if I'm not enough for you…" I almost glanced up at Sean, I was sure he was actually smirking at the turmoil.

"You talk about boys, Cupcake?"

"Princess, what do you mean?"

"I am sure there is an explanation, Miss Sorenson."

Oops, guess I must have hit a nerve there if he went all formal on me. I appreciated the fact that Victor cared enough to ask what I meant and not just jump into a conclusion. I almost choked on the bite of my BLT that I was chewing before a heavy hand patted me on the back and I glanced sideways at Silas as he looked at me in concern before smiling at me. "Thanks." I murmured, taking a sip of water and looking up.

Yup, they were all still here.

Yup, they had all stopped eating.

And yes… I sighed. The range of emotions ran rampant in the eyes of my 9 loves.

"Miss Sorenson."

I sighed again and dropped my sandwich. "I didn't mean talk about other guys." I said. "Trust me, I have more than enough on my plate trying to handle the 9 of you." I rolled my eyes and then narrowed them at them one at a time until they relaxed a bit. "I mean, I just…" I shrugged. "I love that if I have problems or things that I can't seem to resolve I can come to you." I motioned at Owen. He gave me a millimeter smile.

"And I'm surprisingly more comfortable than I ever thought I would be talking about any medical things with you." I said to Sean. "Each of you give me a perspective and answer to something that I can't get from the others. I mean, who else is going to take care of clothes, hair and make-up but Gabriel?"

"Damn straight fuck yeah, Trouble."

"And Luke helps me with my sweet tooth issues, North hears my dreams and presses me to eat vegetables." I continued before telling Nathan, Kota, Victor and Silas what they meant to me as well.

"So help us understand, Princess."

"I just…" I bit my lower lip for a moment. "I… I don't want to talk to Owen about relationship issues I'm having with any of the rest of you. I don't want to talk to any of you about problems I have with the rest of you. It's not fair. No one deserves to have their girlfriend complain about them to their friends." I took a deep breath.

"Because you're more than friends, you're all my boyfriends and it wouldn't be right. Owen and I talked about it already. Individual dates and details are to be just between us, I won't share pictures or details about my dates with any of you with the understanding that you don't either because it's not fair. Not to you and certainly not to me because it would make me feel shallow and cause you to think I don't appreciate you." I looked around. "I just… My mother, stepmother… step monster, would rather call me a slut and a whore and probably would cheerfully kill me just to save herself the horror of having a tramp for a daughter…. Step daughter who is a constant reminder of her husband's infidelity." I sighed softly and took a sip of water.

"My sister hates me. The only other girl my age in our neighborhood is her friend and thinks I'm a slutty whore too. Jessica is too young. I'm certainly not talking to Erika, Pam or Mrs. Green." I stated, noting the amused look that flashed onto Sean's face at the thought of me contacting his mother to have a chat about boys with her.

I mean, I haven't even met her yet or anything.

"The only girl I know who actually hasn't tried to kill me or date any of my boys is Karen." I said. "But I still wouldn't be able to talk to her. Can't tell her about the two of you." I motioned at Owen and Sean. "And we won't be at school next year so… Awkward." I frowned.

"So who do I talk to?" I asked, my eyes wide as I studied them. "Girls don't like me." I muttered before dropping my gaze. I wanted to curl up on my chair but there wasn't enough space between me and the table to do so.

It was true, somehow, I seemed to rub girls the wrong way. Even all the academy girls I'd met back at my introduction and the trial and EVERYTHING that I did… they didn't like me either.

Although I suppose that had more to do with how hard they tried to hook up with my boy's right in front of me only to be shot down and hard by my guys.

Who promptly would find me and lay a searing kiss on my lips that left me blushing and staring after them as they'd head off to do what they needed to do. The view when they would walk away was actually very nice after all and I certainly wasn't sorry that I had to look at it … but even that got me glares and venomous words hissed my way.

I heard all of them breathing, but no one was saying anything or eating and I looked up again for a moment to find that they all, to a man, had a troubled gaze on their face as they looked at me.

"Sorry, Trouble." Gabriel finally spoke up. "We didn't fucking know." He said, eyes wide as they looked at me.

I shrugged. "Its okay, Meanie. No one did because I didn't say anything."

"I suppose that you could and should consult Lily." Owen said. "She is the one that will understand the best."

I met his gaze for a long moment. "I guess." I said softly. "But that's still not right." I said. "I … I sort of … well, I …"

"Just say it Pookie. There's no judgements here, we all love you."

"I wish she was my mom." I blinked against the rush of tears that flooded my eyes, feeling horrible at bringing down the mood when we'd been having a good day.

There were 9 sudden intakes of breath and 9 slow exhales as it suddenly dawned on them just how broken of a girl I was.

I literally had them.

I had Uncle, Charlie, Erika, Pam and Jessica in my corner with them.

I had Lily and her husbands who I adored more than any of them ever knew because honestly, if I was with them, it made me feel like their daughter. They'd never had kids and Lily had told me more than once that the 5 of them were so grateful that I wanted to spend time with them because it let them see what it would have been like to be parents.

Dr. Roberts, who always had a kind word for me and a bag of candy that he would slip to me when we passed in the halls, was like the grandfather that I did miss desperately. He slipped the candy to me so that Sean wouldn't steal it and eat it all before me.

That was the extent of the world that I was comfortable with.

"I see." Owen murmured softly.

"So it's nice to talk to her because like you said, she understands." I said. "But it's still not the same, I can't giggle about things with her and you know, girly stuff like I would maybe with a girl my own age."

"There's a few nurses at the hospital that are nice and not too much older than you." Sean said, running his hand through his hair.

"They don't like me." I said glumly. He looked confused. "Because they all have crushes on you." His eyes remained puzzled. "Just like the cheerleaders don't like me because of North and Silas and most of the other girls don't like me because I'm always monopolizing the rest of you and well, frankly, I'm sure Marie and Danielle spread a few rumors about me… which everyone else believed. So there's only Karen from school."

The boys were all still working on what I'd said.

"It's a problem for another time though." I said softly. "Please eat. I'll be okay."

"We'll figure something out, Darling." I met Owen's gaze again.

"I'm sure we will, my love."


	31. Chapter 28

We finished lunch without any more issues of me saying the first thing that popped into my mind and adjourned into the living room to go over expected Academy jobs for the boys this week. Apparently there wasn't much to be done as the Academy was happy to let our team have some downtime after a job that took the entire last nine months.

A movie was put in and I retreated to the kitchen under the guise of grabbing snacks but also to make sure things were cleaned up after 2 family meals today. I pulled out bags of microwave popcorn and lined them up, starting the microwave with the first one and getting out large bowls for everyone to share from. I took a few moments to rinse some dishes and put them into the dishwasher before pulling out the popcorn and putting the next one in. I fell into an easy pattern of swapping bags and cleaning before the last one finished and I filled up a tray with bottled drinks and the popcorn and turned to take them into the kitchen when a swirl of spring scent shifted through the air. "Owen…" I murmured, glancing up to find him looking at me.

"Sang, Darling…" He moved to me, pulling me into his arms and kissing my forehead. "I didn't realize that you were missing out on the companionship of a girl your own age."

"I didn't either." I admitted, relaxing into his hug. "It just struck me as something that maybe I do need though because it just wouldn't be fair to any of you if I talk to you about it."

He smiled. "True. Because if you did need to complain about me, who are you going to talk to? Sean or Kota?" he teased.

"Hadn't considered that yet." I smiled. "I still plan on talking to Lily. I like spending time with them."

"I want you to still do that." He agreed. "But I was thinking, it wouldn't be so bad for you to foster a friendship with Karen."

I squinted slightly as I looked up at him. "Oh?"

He nodded. "She knows we were related to the Academy at least as far as knowing that it was a school so you're going with us next year. You could tell her that Sean and I aren't in that sort of capacity there and disclose that we aren't that much older. If it comes up that is."

"So I could trust her with limited information." I mused.

"Yes." He gave a slight nod. "Outside of that, the Toma team is starting to find themselves in a similar spot with a bird." He said.

"Oh?"

"She's a little older but her brother is Wil Winchester."

"Oh." I frowned this time. "Wil was really nice but he never mentioned a sister." I said. "I think with your approval, I'll reach out to Karen and see what happens. If Wil's sister is going to be Academy or really close to a team then maybe I'd better just play it by ear with her." I said after a long deliberation.

He studied me for a long moment. "If that's what you'd like."

"I think it's what I'm most comfortable with." I said. "Academy girls don't like me." I said softly.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched me. "How can anyone not like you?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I'm told I have a charming personality." I smirked when he laughed.

"Yes, it's quite charming." He kissed the tip of my nose.

"I just don't get along with girls." I shrugged again. "And the natives are going to get restless if we don't give them popcorn."

"Very true."

He kissed me lightly on the lips before letting me go and helping me take everything into the other room and pass it out. I settled onto the couch between Luke and Victor as I got into the movie, getting lost in the plot and absentmindedly eating the popcorn from the bowl I was holding on my lap.


	32. Chapter 29

I had my shopping trip with Gabriel on Tuesday. He wasn't actually that happy with me about it. I'd insisted that I was using my own money and we weren't going to use Victor's credit card at all.

"Trouble…" He warned, waving a finger in my face.

I grabbed his finger. "Meanie." I scowled before kissing the tip of his finger. "I'm serious. You're lucky that I'm not dragging you to the nearest Goodwill store to shop. I'm not used to always getting brand new things and I just want to use my own money this trip. Only today." I said, my lower lip extending out into a pout.

"No pouting Trouble." He pulled his finger out of my grip and poked it at my lower lip. "I can't stand it when you pull that god damn shit."

"Come on. Hear me out, meanie." I said, smiling as I linked my arm though his as we walked through the mall. "Number one, we need to go through my closets and I either want to make a donation at a thrift shop or if you think they'll accept it, we can drop them off at our neighborhood. You know, with the Thanksgiving people…"

He considered my words and gave a slight nod. "I'll check with Mr. B and see if he thinks they'd be open to the jackpot that is your surplus closet."

I smiled. "Or we take it to the Academy and set it all up into overnight bags so that if there are girls that need those sizes and don't have spares or end up there without a plan…?"

"I like that idea too." He said. "That happens a lot with the camp outs and shit."

"That's what I thought." I said softly before leaning over and kissing his cheek. "So number two, I need and want us to be more frugal with my wardrobe budget. I don't wear that many clothes, I don't need that many clothes and I should wear the ones that still fit from last summer anyway. So I'm not saying no to shopping just, today since I want to get things for various dates and outings I have set up, I think I should take care of my wardrobe expenses. You can shop all you want later for me and we'll do that on our other trips."

"I guess." He said reluctantly, earning another kiss. "But I'm buying you a Disney World wardrobe." He threatened.

"You mean, Victor is." I teased.

"Yeah, that."

"Okay, I'll allow it." I teased. "So we're agreed. We're shopping on a budget and not going overboard today." He huffed a sigh but nodded again. "Thank you Meanie." I said as I steered him into Old Navy. "First stop…" I smiled brightly. "I need golfing clothes and something casual to wear on my date with Victor and Luke this weekend." I paused by a rack of dresses. "And these look cute, they'd fit the dress requirement for Owen…" I mused.

Gabriel smiled "On sale too…" He said before flipping through the racks and pulling out a few things.

I smiled to see him happy and paying attention to sale signs. I was more than happy to go into a changing room and try things on once he got in the spirit of things.

I bought him lunch when we were halfway through and by the end of the day, we were both tired but he was happy that I'd ended up with a lot more wardrobe than he'd expected when I told him the rules for the day. My money went a long way today because everything we bought was on sale. I was happy that he'd stuck to my budgeting as well as the fact that I had everything I needed to go out with my boys for the next several dates that we had planned.

Saturday morning rolled around and I was practically bouncing around the house as I got ready for the day with Victor and Luke.

Gabriel had been over last night to lay out my clothes and go over what he deemed appropriate for my hair today. I turned the music up on my stereo as I brushed my hair, pulling it up into the ponytails he'd said would be perfect if I braided them. I couldn't help but feel a little like I was Jessica in her constant braids and wishes to be Katniss Everdeen. I rolled my eyes before winding the braids up on top of my head and pinning them.

I slathered sunscreen lotion on my face before using the spray sunscreen to coat my body, sneezing when the cocoa butter and coconut scent hit my nose. I'd get Nathan to spray down my back and the backs of my legs before I left with Victor and Luke. I pulled a face at the scent because I'd forgotten to turn on the overhead fan before spraying. I opened the window instead and headed into the bedroom with the towel wrapped around me.

Victor texted that he was on his way to pick me up and that we'd stop to get coffee before swinging by the Taylor 'compound' to pick up Luke. I smiled and texted a smilie face back to him before getting dressed in the denim shorts and halter top that had been laid out. I strapped on sandals and grabbed my purse – a tote bag today because Gabriel insisted that boys don't think of these things so I had a towel folded up to sit on and there was space for me to tuck my sunglasses, the sunscreen, phone and wallet into it and not worry about losing anything. I headed out, greeting Nathan with a kiss on the cheek before getting him to spray the rest of me down with the sunscreen.

"Don't forget to put on another coat in a few hours, Peanut."

"Okay, Honey." I smiled at him.

"Are you sure you don't need a hat?'

I wrinkled my nose. "I don't think one would fit over these braid bundles that seem to have sprouted out of the top of my head."

He laughed and kissed my forehead when we heard Victor's car pull in. "Have fun."

"I will." I said before opening the front door and waving at Victor as I came out and practically skipped to the car.

"I would have come to get you, Princess."

"I know." I said, looking up at him with a smile as he'd gotten out of the car to come around and open the door for me. "Good Morning, my prince." I said softly.

He smiled and ducked his head, kissing me on the lips with a light but promising kiss. "Good Morning to you." He said, his fire eyes lighting up to more than just a smolder as he gazed at what I was wearing. "You look beautiful."

I rolled my eyes. "This is hardly a beautiful outfit." I said.

"YOU look beautiful." He stated, tipping my chin up to look into my eyes. "The clothes are fine." He said, shrugging one shoulder slightly.

My smile bloomed across my face and I stretched up to kiss him, a smacking pop of a kiss. "I love you." I said happily. "I'm so excited for today." I said as I got settled in the car.

"I'm looking forward to it as well." He said, closing my door and going around to get behind the wheel. "It's a great weather day and there's going to be some great music."

"And food, Luke is totally looking forward to the food." I smiled. "He texted me a list of things he plans on trying today." He chuckled. "He probably actually didn't eat anything in anticipation of what he's going to have."

"I would not be surprised." Victor agreed before swinging through the Starbucks Drive Thru that had been opened a few months ago. He ordered the coffees and a few things to eat before we headed on our way to pick up Luke. "It'll still be a bit before we get there and before the food is opened. I think he'd probably eat something without realizing it."


	33. Chapter 30

Luke was actually waiting for us halfway down the drive and he slid into the car. "Hey Cupcake…" He smiled at me. "And Victor."

Victor chuckled.

I turned to beam at him. "Good morning, Sugar." I said, handing him the coffee that we'd gotten for him. "Are you in need of something to take the edge off your hunger while we travel?"

He took the coffee and took a large gulp of it. "Sure, what did we get?"

"Hmm… good question." I said, peering into the bags. "There's a chorizo breakfast sandwich that I think Victor wants." I glanced at him and he nodded slightly. "But he's willing to share." I teased as he grinned. "There's croissants and a bagel… banana bread, a morning bun and a slice of lemon bread." I said.

"Chocolate croissant?" he asked hopefully.

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Yes." I said reluctantly.

"I'll split it with you, cupcake." He offered.

I beamed again. "Okay." I said, taking it out and letting him split it in half before taking my half back and offering Victor his sandwich.

"Thank you princess." He took the sandwich with one hand, keeping one in a good spot on the steering wheel.

I settled into my seat, nibbling on my croissant and drinking coffee as Luke fiddled with the radio controls in the back seat to find something for us to listen to on the way. I held Victor's sandwich when he needed to switch out for his coffee and split the banana bread with Luke. I chuckled as Luke and Victor got into a discussion about jazz music, before pulling out my phone and sending a quick text to Gabriel

~Meanie… my outfit is a hit. J Didn't want to forget about 2 things that popped in my head last week. ~

He responded immediately with a smiley face and a question mark.

~Halloween… Snow White and the 7 dwarfs … or Peter Pan… Wendy and the lost boys etc. ~

My phone buzzed quickly with his reply. 'Oooh Trouble. Those are good. We could have a huntsman and a mirror with Snow… Who's Peter Pan?*

~Sean. Dr. B or Kota would be Michael… North or Silas Captain Hook… unless Mr. B would… lol~

He quickly texted back a message that basically said he'd think about it and let me know. I looked up to find Victor glancing at me. "What?"

"Everything okay?"

"Yes, I just had a couple thoughts about Halloween this week and I keep forgetting to tell Gabriel my ideas."

"What are you thinking of?" Luke asked, leaning forward enough to get in on the conversation. I quickly explained to both of them. "Oh I like that idea." He said. "I want to be Happy … if we're Dwarfs."

Victor smiled. "We might not have to wait that long." He said. I raised an eyebrow at him. "There's a trend I've heard about where people dress up in the colors of characters and go to a Disney park. It's called Disneybounding. I bet Gabe would freak out if he got to dress you similar to a Disney princess for the day. It's not really a costume, just clothes based and patterned after characters."

"We have to be careful about telling him that." I said, pushing a finger against my lower lip.

Luke and Victor busted out laughing.

"No, I'm serious." I said. "We talked about shopping on Tuesday. We all have far too many clothes." I said. "We should tell him about it for the days we go to the parks but make him create the outfits out of things already in our closets."

"That's a very good idea, Princess." Victor nodded, accepting the idea and going along with it even though it was usually his credit card doing all the shopping and he never minded spending the money.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow then at Brunch… where's it at tomorrow?"

"Kota's." Luke said before settling in his seat again. "This summer is going to be awesome." He said, digging in his pocket. "Oh, I forgot to give you this." He said, handing me an envelope. "Uncle sent your week's pay and tip dollars. The change is still in the jar behind the counter. It would have been too heavy to carry around all day."

"Thank you." I said, glancing in the envelope and tucking it away in my bag. It was nice to have my cash, even though I knew that between the two of them, I probably wouldn't actually pay for anything today. "So…" I looked back at him. "Did you decide what you were going to eat first?" I teased, sending Luke into a rapturous rundown of everything he'd figured out by cruising the online site for the festival. I exchanged an amused look with Victor as we both smothered laughter to let Luke run on through his list.


	34. Chapter 31

"Churros with sauces. They have different ones, Sang." Luke said, a dreamy look on his face. "I'll get us different ones, then I can dip my churro into your sauce. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

I blinked and glanced at him, catching sight of the barely masked amusement on Victor's face. "Uh, sure Sugar." I smiled at Luke.

Victor snorted. "And you want to dip your corn dog into her sauce too?" he asked Luke, looking in the mirror back at him.

"Oh yeah, that would totally rock." Luke nodded. "Right Sang?"

I studied him, unsure of just what was going on. Why was Victor so tickled with the current line of conversation? "Right." I said, my gaze locking on Victor as he chortled softly and turned on the turn signal to make the exit for the festival.

"Well as long as your sauce is the only place he plans on dipping his corn dog and churro…" Victor almost snorted as he said the words. I took a sip of my coffee, putting it down as my finger made its way to push at my lower lip.

Luke was momentarily distracted from his food plans and sat up straight. "Wait… what?" He frowned, the tips of his ears turning red as he realized what Victor was saying. "Dude, that's so not cool to make fun of my plans."

"I'm not making fun of your plans." Victor tried to calm down. "What you're saying sounds a tad bit, shall we say suggestive?" He smirked.

I frowned, unsure of what he meant, glancing back at Luke. I tilted my head when he seemed to choke on his coffee and his face flushed with color. "I don't get it." I admitted, dropping my head.

Luke blinked and tried to regain his breath. "Never mind, Cupcake." He managed. "I'm sure Victor will be happy to explain it all since it's his dirty little mind that went there first." He gave Victor an evil eye.

It did its job because Victor did stop laughing and his face paled slightly. "We can just drop it all together." He stated, straightening up in his seat as he drove towards the gate to pay for parking.

"Oh…kay…" I frowned for a moment. "It's part of our date today that doesn't have to be anything but private." I shrugged.

"Good point, Princess." Victor paid for the parking ticket and drove on, finding a spot in a not too crowded area. He backed into the spot so that we could have an easier time leaving.

Luke beat him around the car to open my door for me. He smiled and reached for my bag after helping me out of the car. "Cupcake…" He said, lowering his head to drop a kiss on my lips.

I sighed briefly against his lips before he pulled way, shutting the car door so Victor could lock it. I beamed at him and then at Victor. "Today's going to be amazing." I said, letting Victor take my hand as we started to walk towards the entrance, Luke took my other hand, my bag on his opposite shoulder.

Victor's lips quirked with a ghost of a smile. "I think it's hitting on something amazing for all of us." He said. "But you're here for the food and the music which is remarkable." He said.

"Oh, I'm here for more than just the food." Luke was quick to say, smiling over my head at Victor.

"You are?" came the dry response as Victor studied him.

"Well of course." Luke said.

"You both like music." I interjected, glancing between them worriedly. The point behind this was to allow me to spend time with both of them, not to have things escalate out of control into a fight.

Fighting was so NOT on my agenda today. They'd all done really well with not fighting but sometimes I never knew just when they were teasing or when they were serious.

Victor relaxed slightly but his gaze remained on Luke, waiting for an answer. He gave me a slight smile and squeezed my hand gently. "True, Princess."

"Anyway… I'm not just here for the food." Luke continued before winking at me. "I'm here for Sang…!"

I giggled at the look on his face.

Victor laughed as well. "Good point, Luke." He said. "I guess I'm not just here for the music but also here for Sang."

I giggled harder as first Luke and then Victor kissed me on the cheek as we approached the ticket booths. Victor dropped my hand to go pay for the tickets. I looked up at Luke. "This is really nice." I said. "Being able to spend time together." I said.

"It is. We're going to have fun." He nodded. "You've got enough sunscreen on, right?"

"I do. I've been in the car ever since it was put on so I'm okay for now." I said. "There's more in my bag if you think you might want to put some on." I said.

"Yes mom." He teased.

"What?" Victor came back to us.

"Just offered my sunscreen if anyone needs it. Luke sees that as mothering." I said, turning to eye him for a moment. "And if I told you not to eat too many sweets?"

"Yes North." He retorted immediately.

I giggled. "Fine, truce. We aren't nagging you about food so you don't get to try and put me into any sort of bubbles today."

They both gave me a pinky swear promise and Victor distributed our tickets and we headed to go through the gates.

"So… where to first?" Victor asked as he reached out for the offered program, opening it and carrying it with one hand as he claimed my left hand again, Luke already had ahold of the right one.

I peered at the map he was looking at. "Is there a main area to put down the towel I brought for us to sit and listen to the most music?" I asked. "If we could establish a 'home' base so to speak then it would be easy to take turns wandering and getting food and things."

"That sounds like a good idea." Luke agreed.

Victor gazed at the map, studying the venues and the acts. "Looks like I found one." He said. "We have plenty of time to wander first, we might want to pick up a few things."

I wondered what he meant about that for a few moments before I realized what he meant. There were not only food booths set up but also vendor booths. My eyes widened as I took them all in as we went into a building.

Not that I needed cookware sets or knife sets that were guaranteed to make my kitchen duties easier. That was also all that was needed to be said about the various blenders, mattresses and cable tv packages that were being offered. We avoided the roofing, siding and landscaping booths as well. I nudged Luke as we walked past some extensive ladder systems. "Those would make 2 story windows a heck of a lot easier to get in and out of."

He laughed. "True, but we'd have the darndest time trying to quickly and quietly get away." He said.

I smiled. "Yes, I suppose… they would be rather difficult to cart around on the motorcycle too."

We both laughed as Victor studied us for a moment, a small smile on his face as we made our way down the aisles.

Luke was distracted for a moment by one of the snack booths. It was selling different types of jerky and he was interested by them, accepting the free samples that were offered and discussing the different varieties. I wrapped my arm around Victor's as we waited for him, looking up at the smoldering fire in his eyes. "Is there anything in particular that you want to look at?" I asked.

He smiled at me. "Oh there's a few jewelry booths in here we might look at."

"We don't have to." I shook my head.

"OH but you asked if there was anything I wanted to look at." He pointed out. "I didn't ask if YOU wanted me to look at them." He smirked.

I blinked at him, realizing what he'd said and I smiled before stretching up to kiss him lightly. "Thank you Victor." I said.

"Haven't done much yet." He said.

"It's the thought behind it. You're thinking of me and I just… thank you… for it." I said with a shrug. "You all mean so much to me. I'm extremely grateful to all nine of you for loving me."

"You're so damn easy to love." Luke said, coming up behind me and overhearing what I'd said. I turned to look at him. "You are, Cupcake. I have no idea what those other people you used to have as roommates were thinking." He said, tucking his purchases into the tote bag he'd handed back to me while he went and shopped.

"Agreed." Victor nodded slightly, taking the bag from me. "My turn to carry." He smirked as Luke took my free hand again and we started off. "To be honest, Princess, I'm not sure what exactly we'd be like after this assignment we did this year. There were a lot of stressful moments."

"Well, we made it, we're all together and I'm still grateful for all of you anyway." I smiled and squeezed their hands.


	35. Chapter 32

We made it through the buildings, stopping to get drinks before heading to the area by the stages to lay out the towel and establish a home base for the day. Victor let me hold my bag while he and Luke spread out the towel. "Looks like a good spot." I smiled and set the bag down. "How long until there's music?"

Victor chuckled. "Not too long." He said as they both sat down next to me, each of us sipping on our drink and working on finishing the rest of the pastries we'd bought at Starbucks.

Luke stretched out, one arm over his eyes as he soaked in the sun. "You know, this is actually a great date." He said, cracking one eye open and looking at us. "Plenty of time to hang out together between and before food and music." He said.

I smiled. "It's nice. Quiet…"

Victor chuckled. "Yeah because the others aren't here to rile you up." He said. "North seems to enjoy barking at you Princess."

I shrugged, glancing at Luke. "Mr. Blackbourne pointed out to me a long time ago that North yells because he cares. We've been working very hard on him not yelling at me because I can't yell back at him."

Luke smirked. "Yeah, that goes over well… just need to flip him ass over teakettle every once in a while to make him realize what he's doing." He snickered.

I shrugged again. "It works. It also works if I just tell him we're too worked up to talk about it right then. Seems to calm him down a bit." Victor smiled slightly. "But enough about people who aren't on this date…" I said. "I'm here with two of my very handsome boys and I'm having a great time."

"You're adorable." Victor said before leaning over to kiss me. I kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his neck as we made out. I heard the click of a camera behind me and pulled away, glancing down at Luke.

"Just doing a little capturing." He said.

I eyed him. "Those are just for the three of us then." I reminded him.

"I know." He said. "Victor will take a few for us later." He stated, glancing at Victor, who nodded.

I tilted my head to study them. "It honestly does not bother either of you to see me kissing the other?"

Luke shook his head right away but Victor smiled. "Of course not, Princess." He said. "We both know what has to happen."

My brow furrowed slightly as Luke sat up and moved even closer to me, wrapping one arm around my waist and leaning in to kiss my cheek. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"He means that we are well aware that the math doesn't add up very nicely." Luke said. "There are nine of us, one of you and only 7 days in a week." He said softly, his fingers at my waist wandering beneath the edge of my top and splaying out against my skin. My skin tingled at his touch and I studied him for a very long moment before looking at Victor.

"It only makes sense that those of us who don't mind seeing you kiss one of the others should go on group dates with you. We'll both want some individual time as well but why should we wait to spend time with you alone when we can hang out and go on dates like this together?" Victor asked.

"It won't be all of us all the time anyway." Luke pointed out. "At some point, I'm going to drag you off to get food with me and have you all to myself for a bit. And then I'll wander off on my own so that you can sit here and listen to music with Victor."

"I get it now. We can kiss and cuddle all together and I can trust and know that neither of you is going to want to punch the other one out but also, I'll get one on one time with you as we pursue the main top reasons both of you are here." I said, glancing between them. They both smiled, beaming at me really, because I understood what was going on.

"I have to admit that I thought that you knew that from the moment we were making the schedule." Victor said. "You managed to arrange individual dates with us on basically alternating weekends and have scheduled day events with pairs of us on the other weekends with a sleep over here and there on the weekends where you're not exclusively with one of us."

"Maybe subconsciously I did realize." I shrugged one shoulder. "I was just wanting to make sure we had time for sleepovers and pool parties every once in a while." I smiled. "I adore any time I get alone with any of you but I love you all the same, just for different reasons, you know?"

Luke nodded. "I know." He said. "It makes sense, how you managed to get things scheduled. We do have a lot of things planned for the summer and it is cool to think that we might get to tag along on a date and experience something else that we might not have considered before." He glanced at his phone. "And on that note, I think it's time to get some food. Do you want to come with me, cupcake?" he stretched, getting to his feet.

I looked at Victor, my eyes meeting his as I studied him, trying to decide what to say.

"Go on, Princess. You know you want to actually see the food that they have here and not just wait for him to bring something back." He smiled, tugging me forward a little bit to kiss me lightly before letting go of me. "I'll be right here."

"Okay." I said, smiling before taking Luke's hand and letting him help me off the towel. "I do want to see that waffle fried bacon and the bacon on a stick before I tell you just to bring it to me." Luke laughed and laced his fingers through mine. "Do you want anything Victor?"

He shook his head with a smile. "Surprise me." He said.

Luke laughed. "Brave man… trusting us with that."

"I trust Sang." Victor stated firmly. "I don't trust you with my food choices but I trust her."

I giggled. "I'll try not to let you down." I said. I blew him a kiss as Luke laughed and made me start walking with him as we headed to the nearest food area to scope out what the booths were offering.


	36. Chapter 33

"So, what are we going to start with?" I asked Luke, clutching his hand tightly as he led me on a winding path through people and tables.

"Well…" he scratched his head with his other hand. "I was thinking as much as I want churros and corn dogs, there's lots of time for those later so maybe we start with some Chinese or Thai noodle dishes and a few meat skewers."

"Bacon on a stick?" I asked, drawing up alongside of him and looking up at him. He was just so darn cute. I always thought my boys should be models but Luke absolutely would be a HUGE draw if he was ever a model.

He glanced down at me, amusement sparkling in his eyes. "Well, that is on a skewer…" he said

"Exactly. And its' protein so North wouldn't yell if he was here."

"You make an excellent point, Cupcake." He said, glancing away from me for a moment. I smiled, tilting my head when he looked back down at me and started to walk again, pulling me off to the side. We were away from most of the people, in a group of trees.

"Luke…?"

"Stop being so irresistible." He said, his body against mine as I was up against the trunk of a tree. I opened my mouth to protest but his lips slanted over mine and he kissed me. I sighed against his lips, my hands coming up to wrap around his neck as I kissed him back. One hand stole up into the hair at the base of his neck and I tangled my fingers there, making sure he didn't move. His hand skimmed down my sides and landed at my waist, again, sneaking beneath the hem of my top to rest on my bare skin. "Sang…" he murmured against my lips before he shifted, his head tilting to the other side as he continued to kiss my lips.

"Luke…" I pulled back slightly but all that did was put his lips on my neck and he feathered kisses along my neck, up to my jaw and over to the hollow behind my ear. A soft moan escaped me as I held on tighter to him. My head fell back against the tree, exposing the entire length of my neck to him. My eyes closed as he continued to explore my neck before he kissed my lips again. He pulled away, resting his forehead against mine.

"I've been looking forward to that all week." He admitted, eyes finding mine.

I smiled. "Even more than the food?"

The sparkle in his eyes deepened to a smolder as he nodded. "You matter more to me than anything I could ever find to eat." He said. He raised a hand to trace it gently over my cheek. "You're the center of everything, Sang."

"I'm really starting to understand that." I admitted, turning my face into his hand. "All of you mean so much to me." He smiled and bent his head towards mine again, stealing another kiss before we headed back towards the food route he'd been headed for in search of food. Only this time, my arm was around his waist and his was around my shoulders, tucking me into his side as we paused and looked over menus and debated which type of noodle dishes we should take back to share with Victor.

We ended up jugging three different plates of food. One that was full of chicken pad Thai, one that had a really yummy looking sesame beef yakisoba dish and one that simply had bacon on a stick and waffle fried bacon on it. Neither one of us could walk away from that booth without trying it. It smelled really good and I almost fell over when he stopped walking right in front of me. "What?"

"Fried butter."

"Fried butter?" I echoed.

"Yeah… we should try it." He said. "There's no line right now." He grinned at me. "C'mon, Cupcake… let's live a little."

"And fill our arteries up completely." I said dryly but grinning at him.

"Yes!" He said happily as he headed to the booth to place the order.

I peered at the container he was holding once he'd gotten the order. "Interesting. They look like little donut holes."

"But there was a whole butter ball in there so we'll see what it's like." He said as we started walking again, back to join Victor before the music groups started.

"He's going to think we're crazy for getting it." I said. "But it's an interesting idea."

"Festival food at its best and quirkiest." Luke laughed. "We need to keep our opinions on it so that good or bad we can drive North nuts by trying to get it added to the diner menu."

I narrowed my gaze at him. "Because… he'd have no choice but to negotiate chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate batter instead?" I asked.

His eyes lit up. "You're a genius." He said. "I knew I loved how your mind works."

"Thanks, I think…"

"It's a very good thing, Sang. Really." He said earnestly as we found Victor and wove our way through the blankets that had appeared while we were gone.


	37. Chapter 34

Victor rose up from the towel to take a plate from us as we all settled in on the ground again. "Looks good." He smiled, pinching off a piece of chicken from the skewer. "What's that?" He pointed to the fried butter.

"Fried butter." Luke said happily.

Victor made a face. "That doesn't even sound good." He said.

I smiled. "It smelled really good though." I said, reaching for one. I studied it. It was like a donut hole. They'd drizzled them with a strawberry sauce and dusted with powdered sugar. I looked at the two of them and they were looking at me. "Someone's got to go first." I said before taking a bite.

Luke's eyes flared with excitement and he reached for his own. "Is it good?"

I chewed cautiously before taking another bite. "Oh… it's … interesting. Maybe if the butter ball inside had completely melted it would be great." I said, popping the last bite in my mouth to avoid dripping melted butter all over. The unmelted part seemed to just give off a greasy mouthfeel that was a little strange but the overall effect was pretty good. I watched as Luke decided just to pop the whole thing in his mouth.

He frowned slightly before smiling again. "Oh yeah, that is interesting." He smiled at me.

"You two are crazy."

"Try one." I said to Victor. "Just one." I said, holding out the container to him. He eyed me for a moment. "Please Victor…" I said pleadingly, letting my lower lip pop out to a pout for a moment.

"Don't." He warned, reaching for one. "Just for you." He said, leaning in and kissing me lightly before he tried it. He scrunched up his nose before swallowing, making me laugh.

"More for us." Luke said before we all dug into the other dishes that we'd gotten.

"More for you." I said. "I think I'd have an actual elephant ear and maybe some cotton candy."

Victor smiled. "No deep fried pickles?"

"Is that a thing here?" I made a face. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I do like pickles but fried?" I was skeptical.

"Must be a mostly southern thing." Luke shrugged. "They're actually all over down here. I like them with a bit of hot sauce in the ranch."

"So are they going on the diner menu?" I asked, taking a bite of the waffle fried bacon. My eyes widened and I dipped part of it into the maple syrup that had come with it. "Oh this is good." I said, offering it to Luke to take a bite. He leaned into me and took the bite before nodding. "This should be on the diner menu." I said, setting it down to reach for a napkin when my fingers were sticky with syrup.

"Agreed. I'll let Uncle know what we are thinking." Luke smiled and took a sip of water before starting in on some of the yakisoba noodles.

Victor grabbed my wrist before I dripped syrup on him. "Need a napkin, hmm?" he asked.

"I do." I nodded with a smile.

"Let me try the bacon…" He said softly, letting go of my wrist to let me offer him the bacon. He took the bite and chewed it. "That definitely has a lot of flavor. It's good." He said as I reached out for the napkin again. He took my wrist again, eyes locked on mine as he raised my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers, sucking them into his mouth slightly as he cleaned the syrup off of them. He let go of my wrist but I let my fingers settle on his lips for a moment.

"Nice." I murmured, lost in our own world just at the feel of his lips and tongue against my fingers. Luke cleared his throat behind me. I blushed and pulled my hand away from Victor's face. "Sorry."

"No need to be sorry, Princess." Victor said.

"I was just clearing my throat." Luke said. "A noodle sort of went the wrong way." He said as we instituted one of our plate changes and we swapped plates so that each of us could eat something different.

I smiled after studying them both for a moment. "This is going to be the best day." I said softly, toasting them with my water bottle. I giggled when they hit their bottles against mine.

"And it's off to it's start for real now." Victor said as the first music act took the stage. I beamed. "The Jazz Five." He said.

I nodded slightly and shifted, putting the plate down and taking another one of the butter balls to see if they were any better after having a chance to cool down a bit. It wasn't bad, I thought as I finished it off and shifted, tucking my legs underneath me as I shifted closer to Victor, watching in rapt attention as the jazz group played.

Luke shifted closer as well, the three of us sitting as close as possible as we listened to the music. I smiled, leaning back against his shoulder as Victor's arm claimed the spot across my legs when Luke's arm slipped around my waist.


	38. Chapter 35

Luke shifted me more towards Victor between acts. "I'm going to go find us more things to eat." He said, gathering up our garbage. "More waters?" He asked.

"Sure, that'd be great." Victor said with an easy smile.

"Thank you, Sugar." I said as he got up and headed out to wander on his own. I shifted more into Victor who pulled me onto his lap.

"Are you having fun?"

"I am." I said, wrapping my arms around his neck as I shifted to straddle him so we were face to face. There wasn't anything going on up on the stage right now as they were between acts. "I really enjoyed that group."

"Me too." He nodded, still smiling as we talked about what they'd played in their set. My eyes dropped to his lips as he spoke, mesmerized. "Princess?"

I blinked and my eyes darted up to meet his. "Sorry." I felt my cheeks flush with color. "I … I just want…" I sighed softly and leaned into him, closing the distance between our faces and kissing him intently.

Victor trailed one hand up my back to tangle it in the hair at the base of my neck as he kissed me back, deepening the kiss when my lips parted to allow his tongue access. His other hand traced a pattern along my spine and ribs, as always, seeming to be playing a musical piece on my body… using the ribs as piano keys. I squirmed slightly in his lap. "Stay still, Princess." He murmured against my lips, stealing a quick breath before our lips locked again.

I instantly stilled, reacting only to his kiss and not the nearness of my body settled intimately on his as we sat there in the grass. I pulled away, needing to breathe. I smiled at him, meeting his eyes. "That was nice." I said.

He chuckled. "Very nice." He agreed, shifting me so that there was a little more space between us and I wasn't going to cause him any uncomfortable issues. His eyes studied me. "Might be time for more sunscreen."

"Probably." I nodded and reached to his side for where it was in my bag. He liberally sprayed me with the sunscreen and I reapplied the sunscreen to him as well before settling in, sitting on my own at his side, our legs touching as we sat together. I settled my sunglasses back on my nose and curled into him, welcoming his arm wrapping around me as we just sat there and enjoyed each other's company.

Luke didn't return by the time the next act started and during the third song they played, we were making out again to the sound of a love song, unable to resist as the music and lyrics drew us closer together and sucked us in to the moment. We broke apart when the song ended and the crowd applauded.

Including a whistle in our ears.

We both glanced up to find Luke grinning at us. My cheeks flushed with color. "Well that was hot." Luke said, sitting down, handing out bottles of water, giving me a huge bag of cotton candy and setting a few containers on the towel within all of our reaches.

My eyes widened, both at the size of the fluffy pink clouds of candy I was holding but also at the fact he'd made it back with bottles of water and 4 plates of food. "What in the world did you get..?"

Victor chuckled, surveying the plates and shaking his head. "Luke, you just went wild, didn't you?"

Luke shrugged. "Today's like a holiday for me. I'm allowed to do and eat what I want." He said lightly.

"No one said you couldn't." I reminded him. "It's just a lot for one person to carry back."

He laughed. "I had the water in my pockets and the cotton candy bag in my teeth." He said, leaning over and planting a kiss on the tip of my nose.

Victor laughed. "Always resourceful."

Luke nodded. I nudged him and glanced at the plates. "Right…" he smiled at me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Fried pickles… elephant ear… strawberry shortcake and apple pie fries." He said, pointing at each of them. "And of course, cotton candy."

I laughed. "Sounds like I'm going to have my culinary taste buds expanded."

Victor smiled. "In only the way a south Carolina fair and Luke can manage to expand them for you." He teased, earning an eye roll from Luke.

"They all just sounded good." He said defensively before the next song started up and we fell silent, listening to the music and eating our way through four plates of food.

I sat comfortably between them, toying with cotton candy and eating it while enjoying the music, which ended up starting a bit of a make out session with Luke. I was startled when he first leaned in and kissed me. "Luke…"

"I'm sorry." He breathed, glancing over my head at Victor before his eyes focused on my face again. "But… you… cotton candy…" He shook his head and slanted his lips over mine again, his tongue plundering my mouth and transferring the sugary sweet taste of the cotton candy from my lips to his.

I sighed against his lips, shifting forward and wrapping my arms around his neck, giving in to the kiss. I heard the noise of a phone behind me, knowing that Victor was returning the favor from earlier and taking some pictures of us.

Victor shifted in his seat. "Be right back." He muttered and I heard him tuck his phone away and gather up the plates and other garbage around us before he went to go toss it way.

I pulled away from Luke, resting my forehead against his and looking at him. "I'm not allowed to eat cotton candy anymore, am I…?"

He grinned at me. "Only if we're alone." He said.

I inclined my head slightly. "That makes sense." I said, shifting to settle in his lap, his arms around me as I faced the stage again. He pressed his lips to my temple before holding out his phone and taking our picture. "I look like a crazy woman."

"No you don't." he said, nudging me. "Smile… you're beautiful." He clicked off a series of photos when I laughed. "Shall we take one to drive Gabe nuts? I have clips."

I giggled so hard at the idea. "Yes. We should." I nodded. "I can redo my hair." I felt his fingers automatically go to my hair and release the buns that I'd done my hair in today and finger comb them out before he twisted it haphazardly up into a twist and clipped it. "Now yours." I said, sitting up enough to be able to pull his hair up as well and thrust the clip he handed me into it. "There." I smiled.

He grinned back at me before raising the phone again, getting as high of a view as he could of our hair. He took the picture and showed it to me before he sent it to Gabriel. "And now… we drive him batty." He said, turning off his phone and tucking it away in his pocket.

"It's a little mean of us…" I said.

"He'll text you or Victor soon when I don't respond and you can apologize .He'll only accept it from you anyway." He said, taking out the clip and working on putting my hair back the way it was before.

"Gabe's gonna kick your butt." Victor said, setting back beside us on the towel. He set down a couple slushy drinks for us to share.

"Maybe." Luke shrugged as he finished with my hair and I shifted off his lap to settle again between them.

"I'll make it okay." I said, my hand stealing into Victor's as I gave his hand a squeeze. "Thank you for the drinks. What did you get?"

He explained the flavors he had picked up and we all started trying them, taking sips and swapping cups as the music group on stage finished up their set.


	39. Chapter 36

We stayed in our spot throughout the evening, taking breaks to again wander the vendor booths and grab a few things for dinner, including the corn dog and churro that Luke had wanted earlier in the day before finishing out the night, in awe of the musicians that were playing the closing shows of the evening. It didn't take long to get rid of our trash and pick up things to head home again. I sighed softly. "I don't wanna walk." I whined as Victor shouldered my bag and both he and Luke took a hand as we started to walk.

"Too bad, Princess." Victor smiled at me. "It's not too far to get to where we parked."

I wrinkled my nose. "I guess."

"I can give you a piggy back ride if you want." Luke said.

I beamed. "Okay." I nodded and he paused by a picnic table. I climbed up on the bench and he grabbed me under the legs, my legs wrapping around his waist as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. "Perfect." I said, kissing the back of his head before nuzzling my head in close to his as he carried me. "I'm not too heavy, right?"

"That's a loaded question if I ever heard one." Victor laughed. "Careful how you answer that one." He cautioned Luke.

Luke laughed and shrugged slightly. "Naw, wouldn't have offered to give you the ride if I thought you were heavy." He said. "Besides, we've done things like this before." He reminded me and I smiled. "It's not like I've been carrying you all day."

"And we're away from cameras that would have North redlining you for carrying me for no reason." I said.

They both laughed and we paused to purchase last minute bottles of water for the drive home before we continued out to where Victor had parked. I made Luke pause by Victor before we went around to the other side and I bent down and kissed him lightly. "Thank you for a wonderful day." I said.

Victor smiled and kissed me back. "You're welcome." He said before unlocking the doors.

Luke took me around to the other side of the car and put me down, stealing kiss of his own. "Thank you for thinking of bringing me with you."

I giggled. "You're welcome." I said before we all got into the car and buckled up. I took a long sip of my water and put it in the cup holder. "Brunch tomorrow." I yawned and stretched.

"Yes. At Dr. Green's tomorrow." Victor nodded as he started the car.

My eyes opened wide. "Is he ordering in?" I asked.

Luke laughed. "No, North's going to cook. So probably no pancakes tomorrow. You did tell him he could cook what he wants." He reminded me.

"Right." I nodded. "It's okay. We ate a lot of great things today that no pancakes tomorrow will be fine."

Luke chuckled. "I guess." He said as Victor started to drive out of the parking spot and join in traffic trying to exit the area. "If you say so, Cupcake."

I smiled. "I do say so, Sugar." I said before settling into my seat, head leaning against the window as I watched out for people joining the long line of cars.

Victor glanced at me and then at Luke in the rear view mirror. "Text that we'll see them all tomorrow." He said. "I think it will be best if we just go crash at my house." He said. "It's closest and by the time we get there, it'll be pretty late."

Luke nodded. "Sounds like a good idea to me." He said, pulling out his phone and sending out the text to everyone. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I ignored it since we were in the car together.

I adjusted the air condition vents on me and closed my eyes with a soft sigh, falling asleep to the sound of Victor and Luke talking about the day as some soft jazz music played on the radio. I didn't know anything else until Victor gently shook me awake in his bedroom. "Princess… just wake up enough to change for bed, okay?" he peered into my barely open eyes.

"Mkay." I mostly grunted out in response before he left the room and a pair of pj's next to me on the bed. I cracked my eyes open a little wider and smiled slightly. It was a pair of cupcake printed sleep shorts and a black tank with a treble clef printed on it that said 'I'm Treble'. I smiled slightly and shimmied out of my clothes and underwear before changing quickly into the nightclothes. I flopped back down on the middle of the bed, asleep again before I could do anything more than get my head on the pillow.


	40. Chapter 37

I woke up cuddled in Victor's arms with Luke's arms wound around my waist behind me. I smiled as the moss and berry scent swirled around me with the vanilla sugar scent that was pure Luke. Oh how I loved my boys. I adored how they always ended up with me wrapped in their arms, sharing me in a way overnight. Even if we weren't taking those steps towards intimacy.

I wasn't ruling things out, I just felt that we were not being smart if we went too far too soon. It was nerve wracking enough for me to juggle time with them. I sighed softly, stretching for a moment.

"Morning Princess." Victor's voice was husky with sleep.

"Morning." I said, shifting again and facing him as Luke's arms tightened around me. I reached over and brushed Victor's hair out of his face.

"Sleep well?" he asked, leaning his head down to rest his forehead against mine before he brushed a light kiss to my lips.

"I did. I am not even 100% sure that I remember getting here last night."

He chuckled, running his hand across my back. "Well, Luke carried you up but I woke you up for a bit and you put on your own pj's." He said, glancing down at the screen print on my tank.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, but I didn't pick them."

"No, but you got to admit, they're perfect for this weekend." He chuckled.

I nodded. "Sure." I smiled.

"I like the bottoms." Luke's voice floated over my shoulder, moments before a kiss was pressed to the back of my neck, right up under my hairline.

"Do you?" I asked, shifting to look over my shoulder at him.

"Sure cupcake." He grinned at me. "They're perfect for you."

I smiled at him and Victor backed up enough in the bed to let me roll over so I could greet Luke with a kiss as well. "Good thing that Gabriel knows what each of you likes and fills up my parts of your closets."

"Fine, fine." He shrugged and grinned at me. "We'll give him his due."

I giggled. "How long until brunch?"

Victor shifted enough to look at the clock. "We have a couple hours. Do you want to get up and take a bath now or be lazy and wait a bit?"

"Oh, I'm perfectly fine to be lazy." I said.

Luke grinned again. "Me too. North isn't here to yell at me to get moving, I think I really like this." He said happily.

Victor chuckled. "You're always happy about that." Luke shrugged.

"Does he yell at you often?" I asked, rolling and laying on my back before reaching over to turn Luke's face towards me. "He really shouldn't. I mean, I know he yells because he cares but he needs to figure out how to dial it down a bit."

Luke shrugged. "I don't mind, Cupcake. It all pays off in the end when I see you with him and he looks happy. When you're around, he has started to dial it down."

"Maybe because he knows she can flip him." Victor chuckled.

"Maybe." Luke smiled, stretching next to me before rolling onto his side and looking down at me.

"What?" I asked, looking up at him, smiling but my breath catching in my throat as his eyes lost the sparkle and they darkened as he watched me.

Victor shrugged slightly when Luke glanced at him for a moment but smiled, making a hand motion to Luke. Luke smiled slightly before he let his head drop and he kissed me. His tongue probed gently at my lips before I sighed and wrapped my arms around his neck, my lips parting and accepting his request to deepen the kiss.

I felt the bed shift as Victor got up and headed into the bathroom. "Luke." I moaned softly as he pulled me over on top of him, relaxing back into the pillows. I shifted my weight on him and settled in to kissing him. He kissed me for a few more moments, his hands smoothing their way down my sides to rest on my hips. "Luke." I murmured, pulling away to suck in a deeper breath. I smiled, reaching down to caress his cheek. "Don't get me wrong. I don't mind kissing you at all but it seems rude to have chased Victor from his own bed."

He chuckled and rolled with me to pull me into his arms as we laid on our sides. "I suppose." He said.

There was a chuckle from the doorway. "A bit." Victor agreed with me as he came back to bed and settled in on my other side, resting a hand on my back. "I heard a rumor you were working with Mr. Blackbourne and Dr. Green about a shared bed rules." He teased before leaning in and kissing me when I turned my head towards him.

"Hmm. Good point. Guess it will be time to hammer out some details on that." I smiled. "But for now, accept our apologies."

"Yeah Vic." Luke said. "Didn't mean to take over the bed but she's just so darn adorable."

"Oh. I agree with that completely." Victor smiled before he glanced at the clock. "I did manage to draw you a bath." He said. "Plenty of time for you to soak."

"Oh, sounds lovely." I stretched again, earning admiring glances from both of them as they swept my body from head to toe. "Thank you." I said, sitting up and leaning over to kiss each of them before I got out of bed and paused by the closet to choose a dress for the day. I figured a sundress would be nice. I gathered the other things I needed and gave them a little finger wave and blew them a kiss before heading in to take my bath.


	41. Chapter 38

Sean glanced up when we walked in. "Pookie…" He smiled, his eyes sweeping my body and taking in the dress I was wearing. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you, Dr. Sean." I went over and hugged him. "So, how's it going in the kitchen?"

He wrapped his arms around my waist and hugged me back. "I've been kicked out of it." He said cheerfully.

"Out of your own kitchen?" I giggled.

"North took over." He shrugged before putting a finger over my lips. "If you keep giggling, I'll be forced to administer a cure to you before we even eat."

My lips clamped tightly as I tried to smother my giggles and I nodded slightly. "He does like to do that." I said once he'd pulled his finger away. "But you don't seem at all bothered by it."

"Oh, I'm not. It's half the reason I even consider volunteering for hosting. Someone else will always either order in or take over the cooking."

I giggled again and he didn't hesitate before dropping his head and slanting his lips over mine and I sighed softly at the touch of his lips on mine and ran my hands up his back until I could wrap them around his neck before I kissed him back. My eyes opened slowly when he pulled away and I smiled at him. "Nice." I murmured.

"Very nice…" He said. "So… I'm totally keeping you."

"Oh you are?"

"Yes." He nodded excitedly, making the tousled curls on top of his head dance wildly with the motion. "I've gotten you the day off tomorrow, so we'll spend all the rest of today and tomorrow together before I take you to the hospital for office organizing and baby ogling. I'm very much looking forward to having Nurse Pookie around."

I snorted slightly. "And you're going to sleep at night…" I arched an eyebrow at him.

"I'll try. I'll admit that it does seem to be easier to sleep when you're with me."

I smiled. "Good to know." I said before my eyes glanced over his shoulder to where Owen was waiting patiently for me to actually greet him. I stretched up slightly and kissed Sean's cheek. "Well since I'm apparently going to be all yours for about 3 days, I should go make sure that I check in with everyone else."

He pursed his lips before brushing them against my forehead. "Owen's giving me one of those patented patient, impatient looks of his, isn't he…" he observed. "I can almost feel the glare cutting into my back." He snorted. "And he claims to be my best friend."

"No, you are the one that insists that we're best friends." Owen said dryly as he'd walked over to us.

I giggled before putting my hands over my mouth and looking at Sean.

"But you always agree." Sean said, waggling a finger in his face before waggling it at me. "I will remember this, Pookie. I am going to start mentally keeping a list of how many cures you need later." He said before letting go of me and heading in to the kitchen to check on the food progress.

I turned to look at Owen. "Good morning, my love." I said softly.

He pushed his glasses up with a finger on one corner of his glasses. "Good morning, darling." He smiled at me, lips quirking up a whole centimeter. "I trust you enjoyed your day yesterday?"

I beamed at him and moved a step closer. "I did." I said. "Victor and Luke made the day a lot of fun." I said, reaching out to slightly straighten the knot in his tie. I gave it a little tug when I was done, bringing his face closer to mine. "Missed you." I murmured before raising up almost en pointe to kiss him.

A soft groan came from his throat as he reached up, cradling the back of my head in his palm as his fingers tangled in the hair at the back of my head before he swiped his tongue across my lips in a silent request to deepen the kiss.

I sighed against his lips before parting mine to allow him to deepen the kiss. I did love kissing all my boys but to kiss Owen was like perfection. In kissing, just like in all the other aspects of our lives, he always anticipated what I needed almost before I knew that I needed it. He often said my instincts were remarkable and incredible but Owen Blackbourne was the most instinctual person I knew. I wrapped my arms around him and sighed again before pulling away and resting my head on his chest.

"My darling Sang…" He murmured, running his hand down my back before wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug. "I missed you too." I smiled and tightened my arms around him. "I've heard a rumor you'll be with Sean for a few days."

"That's what he just told me." I said. "I think I'm still working at the diner on Wednesday but …"

He smiled down at me. "Will you need me to save you from his cooking at some point?"

"Maybe Tuesday night. There's only so many sandwiches and slices of apple pie a girl can eat at the hospital cafeteria."

He chuckled. "A very valid point." He nodded slightly.

"And I … wouldn't really be that opposed to sharing a bed with the two of you again." I murmured, glancing up at him for a moment before I felt my cheeks flush a brilliant shade of red at the admission. I didn't want to lead him on but that statement really could have a totally different meaning if we were at a different stage of relationship. I fixed my gaze on the knot of his tie again.

His body had tensed up slightly with my words before he chuckled softly. "Oh, Miss Sorenson…" he murmured, brushing his lips against my forehead. He tilted my face up towards his, two fingers under my chin to get me to look at him.

"Sorry, Mr. Blackbourne." I murmured, eyes locked on his.

He arched an eyebrow at me. "Perhaps someday that statement will have a totally different meaning." He said seriously. I blinked slightly, hardly daring to breathe as I studied him. "But for now, I do understand what you mean and I would be happy to be around Tuesday night if you want me to be here."

I smiled shyly at him, feeling an overload of feelings that I couldn't quite make sense of right now. "I'd like that." I said.

"Then it will be done." He stated, bending his head and stealing a final kiss from me before he let go of me before the boys could make a fuss that I hadn't kissed them yet.


	42. Chapter 39

Brunch went very well, North had made a nice amount and variety of food and we went over the plans for the upcoming week, deciding that the following Sunday, we'd meet at Kota's house for Sunday dinner because Erica wanted to feed us, and also there was a "planning" meeting needed for the Florida trip. She did need to be let in on the plans and Kota said that she was still insisting on finding out what she would need to chip in.

Victor confided in me that he just intended on turning her money into gift cards for her and Jessica to use at the parks while we were there for food or souvenirs. I smiled and kissed his cheek. That sounded like an awesome idea to me and I told him that.

We watched a movie before Nathan, North and Luke had to leave for diner shifts. Someone had called in and Uncle could use a break from cooking today so they were going to handle it. Victor and Gabriel took off not long after that when Silas also left and Kota sat and talked with Owen for a while about a few team checkup things. I glanced at Sean, blushing and averting my eyes when he glanced at me.

"What?" He asked before getting up and moving next to me.

"It's been a while since we've actually been alone." I admitted, glancing at him.

"I guess it has." He agreed, glancing at Kota and Owen for a moment. "Does that make you nervous?"

I shook my head. "Maybe a little." I admitted. "But it's more because I just, well, I've missed you so the idea that it'll just be us for a few days is a bit … much… to try and wrap my head around."

He leaned over and kissed my forehead. "Owen will be here in a heartbeat if you ask him too." He said. "If it's too much to just be with me." He said.

"Oh no, it's fine. Although I did sort of ask him to spend Tuesday night with us, if that's okay with you." I bit my lower lip, suddenly worried that Sean would be offended by it.

"It's fine Pookie." He said, smiling at me, reaching over to tuck a strand of hair back behind my ears. "Owen does often spend Tuesday nights with me anyway. It's a good time for us to check in with Kota and to talk about the family events. We started doing it last fall since we were so busy with school and we've just kept doing it all year." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me back into his arms as we lounged on the couch. "Any things you would like to do besides our clean my office and ogle babies on Tuesday?"

I looked up at him and studied him for a long moment. "I think… that we are going to surprise Owen on Tuesday night." He quirked an eyebrow at me. "I'm going to teach you to cook." I said, determination in my voice.

"I don't know that… that… is such a good idea." Sean said. "I've tried before."

"How?" he looked confused. "Did someone just tell you what to do or did you look it up online… how did you try to learn before?" I asked.

"Well, they just told me what to do and I tried to do it." He finally said.

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Seriously? That's what they thought could pass for having you learn to cook and now they all just make fun of you for trying?"

"I don't think they make fun…" Sean said, but his tone of voice didn't sound that certain.

"Sean…" I said softly, reaching up and caressing his cheek. "We're going to fix this." I said. "By the end of the summer, you are going to be fixing us brunch." I smiled. "Or lunch, or maybe even a Sunday dinner."

His eyes widened. "Pookie, it's okay, I don't want to make anyone sick." He said. "I did take an oath. I'm a doctor."

I giggled and he tapped a finger on my lips. "I know, I know… giggle cure list." I teased him. "Do no harm, hmm?"

"Exactly."

"Owen…" I glanced over at Kota and Owen. "How is it that Sean hasn't actually had anyone actually teach him to cook, not just assume that everyone can figure out a recipe and just do it on your own?"

He blinked at me, glancing at Kota for a moment.

Kota laughed and raised his hands. "She's your girlfriend." He teased.

Owen shook his head. "I understood that we were all in this together, Mr. Lee." He said dryly. "Darling, I'm not sure how it happened. I'd left it up to the Mr. Taylors to take care of."

"Ah. That probably explains it. North just took over and Luke likes to see you fumble so he can consider it a prank win." I nodded. "Thank you." I eyed Kota. "Are you not claiming me now?"

He chuckled again. "Just having a bit of fun, sweetie." He said. "You're just as much mine as theirs."

"Okay." I smiled when he looked at his watch and got up.

"And on that note, I should get going. Mom wanted me to pick up a few things at the store before I came home. She's working tonight and Jess and I are going to have a Hunger Games movie marathon." He said as Owen stood as well to walk him out. HE came over to me first though and bent to kiss me lightly. "See you Wednesday."

"Okay." I smiled at him before kissing him back, fully wrapped up in Sean's arms as I did.

"What?" Sean asked behind me. "No kiss for me?" I giggled as I looked up to see him tilting his head up and making kissy lips at Kota.

Kota laughed. "I'll let Sang fill in" He teased before heading out the door.

"Hear that Pookie? Kota's giving me his kisses from you…"

"This one." I rolled my eyes at him before shifting to kiss him before Owen came back into the room to check on us.

"Ahem."

I grinned up at Owen. "Yes, my love." I said, shifting to stand, still keeping Sean down on the couch where I'd had him just where I wanted him.

"Was just checking in before I leave." He said.

"We're good Owen." Sean said, tilting his head up to look at Owen upside down.

"Clearly."

I laughed. "We are, really." I said before going over to him and wrapping my arms around him in a hug. "See you Tuesday?" I asked.

"Of course." He said, tilting my head up and slanting his lips over mine, kissing me deeply.

I sighed against his lips and kissed him back before I pulled away. "Sean's going to be making us dinner." I said.

His eyes widened. "Are you sure?"

Sean popped up from the couch and glared at him. "Pookie thinks I can do it." He said with a frown.

Owen blinked before holding out a hand towards his best friend. "I don't doubt it." He said. "I apologize for my reaction. Of course, Sang will teach you, I'm sure she will be a more than capable teacher. I look forward to dinner Tuesday night." He smiled.

Sean looked at him suspiciously but shrugged and grinned at him before settling back on the couch.

"I'll just walk you out." I said, linking my hand through his as I steered Owen out to the foyer. "We really have to work on that reaction."

"Hmm?"

"All of you have it." I said, stopping and peering up at him. "Every last one of you make jokes about him and cooking. He's a doctor, for Pete's sake. You don't have to act like he can't be trusted in the kitchen."

"Darling, he tells stories on himself. I've watched him burn water for goodness sake."

"Hmm, my work might certainly be cut out for me." I said, thinking about my idea. "But I think I have a plan." I tilted my head more and smiled. "You like meatloaf, right?"

Owen chuckled. "I do." He nodded.

"Okay then… Tuesday is meatloaf…" I smiled and stretched up to kiss him. "And don't think I won't eventually get into Luke and North's face about how shoddy they taught him anything."

"I'm hoping your methods work…" he said. "It would be nice for him to be able to contribute more than just ordering takeout. Don't get me wrong though, Sean knows all the best places for everything." He said, dropping another quick kiss on my lips before he let go of me and headed out to his car.

I watched him leave, studying him for a long moment before pondering the ways and mysteries that were my love's wardrobe. I waved as he backed out of the driveway and locked the door, heading back to Sean in the living room. I practically pounced on him, straddling his hips and staring down at him.

"Pookie?"

"Scared?" I grinned at him.

"Maybe a little…"

I laughed. "Don't be. This look actually has more to do with Owen than you…"

"I think now, I'm a bit worried."

I bent down and kissed him lightly. "Just a brief discussion about him before we settle in for an afternoon…"

"Okay…" he arched an eyebrow at me. "Don't think I won't be collecting those 7 giggle cures you earned today…" He waggled a finger at me.

"Only 7?" I asked.

"Yes." He eyed me. "Why, how many are on your mental list?"

I shook my head. "Nuh uh… not going to tell. If you missed any that's on your." I said. "Anyway… Owen's wardrobe…?"

"Yeah?" a spark of interest gleamed in his eyes.

"Does he even know how to be 20? I mean… dress like he's 20? If he walked onto a college campus, they'd think he was a professor" I said, earning a laugh from Sean as he pondered my question.


	43. Chapter 40

Sean shifted so that we were curled up on the couch together, face to face and he rubbed my back gently as he thought about his best friend. "I think that Owen has actually forgotten how to act his age." He said. "And no, he absolutely resists any of Gabe's attempts to dress him like the 20 year old guy that he is."

"Hmm…. Maybe for vacation, Gabriel can step up his game." I said before smiling at Sean and resting my palm on his cheek. I leaned in to kiss him lightly. "Want to hear my grand plan about teaching you to cook?"

He smiled. "Absolutely, Pookie. I'm actually excited that it will be my turn to use Luke's choice of music." He teased. I blushed. "Now now, I have to figure out a blushing cure to go with the giggle cure."

I rolled my eyes. "I guess." I said.

"I only speak the truth." He raised a hand. "I am definitely hot for teacher if you're teaching."

"Remind me to remove teaching from my career choice list. I can't have you walking around all day hot for me when we aren't together."

Sean laughed.

"Seriously though, you want to start on my grand plan?" I asked.

"Yes, Pookie." He nodded.

"Okay. Do you have notebooks and pens in that office of yours or is it strictly paperwork?" I teased. "Can we institute a trade? I really want to learn how to make the roses." I said.

He brightened. "You do? I would love to teach you how to make the roses." He said. "And yes, I do have notebooks and pens." He rolled his eyes at me, kissed me and managed to shift me out of the way all in one movement so he could get off the couch. "I'll teach you roses tomorrow." He said.

"Okay." I smiled as he padded down the hall to his office to get what I'd asked him to get. I couldn't help but admire how his butt looked in the jeans he was wearing today. Sean had an easy outlook on appearance. He dressed up just fine for school or when he had duties at the hospital but anytime he didn't have to be there, he was usually in jeans and a t-shirt. I made a mental note to remember t-shirts for his Christmas present this year. He was always wearing shirts for various music acts or random sayings. The fact that he loved to laugh wasn't lost on me anytime I saw him wearing a shirt with a saying.

It always made me laugh.

Usually giggle, yes, which meant I got a lot of curing later depending on who we were with.

I barely noticed his return back to me on the couch because I was lost in analyzing him.

"Okay there Pookie?"

"Yes." I said. "Got lost watching the view when you left." I admitted as I sat up so that he could sit down again on the couch. He handed me a notebook and pen and kept one for himself.

"Watching the view, hmm?" He waggled his eyebrows at him.

"Yes. There was the most attractive doctor wandering down your hallway. I wonder where he went." I said innocently.

His eyes narrowed on me for a moment. "I better be the only attractive doctor you're daydreaming about." He said before slanting his lips over mine and kissing me hard enough that I forgot my name and what we were going to be doing with the notebooks and pens.

I blinked at him.

He raised an eyebrow at me.

I mumbled something about Dr. Roberts being the only other doctor I actually knew and he was definitely grandfatherly in my mind so I wouldn't at all be daydreaming about him.

Sean laughed and tapped the notebook. "Now, Pookie… what are we doing with these?"

I shook my head slightly and refocused my gaze on him. "Right." I nodded. "Notebooks." I frowned, pushing my finger at my lower lip to think. "Yes." I smiled. "We're writing down the recipes you want to know." I said. "We'll start with the ones that I can actually tell you off the top of my head and then tomorrow if we need to, we'll go find some cookbooks to get more recipes."

"Ok…?" He looked puzzled.

I smirked at him. "I'm going to tell you and write it down in English." I said before tapping his notebook. "You're going to repeat it and write it in Japanese. You have to tell me too so that even though mine is in English, I can write it down in Japanese. We never got to any sort of food vocabulary in class and I want to see if you actually grasp things better in Japanese."

His eyes rounded. "Pookie, that's brilliant." He breathed. "I can write it in Japanese." He said in wonder. "I never thought of that before."

"That's why I'm the teacher." I teased. "Since you don't need to look up the words in the Japanese dictionary, I figured this would actually be easy for you. But I still want to learn Japanese." I said.

"You did really well." He said.

"I'd like to talk to your mother in Japanese when we have dinner with them." I said. "If you think she'd be pleased about me doing that."

He reached over and cupped my cheek. "She'd be thrilled." He said before leaning in to kiss me softly. He pulled away and opened his notebook, uncapping his pen. "Okay, lay it on me." He said, eager to get started now that I'd mentioned an alternate learning possibility.

"Okay, okay…" I laughed. "Meatloaf." I said. "Write…" I raised an eyebrow at him.


	44. Chapter 41

By late afternoon on Monday, we were looking a little worse for the wear. We'd stayed up late… Sean was so eager to get started that he dragged me out to the all night grocery store at 11 pm where we wandered through every aisle to find what we needed for his cooking lessons.

We bought twice as much as we needed because we were going to cook it all on Monday to get the experience and then cook again on Tuesday for Owen and Sean didn't want to go shopping twice.

I'm sure we were entertaining for people that were also shopping at night. I was in pajamas and flip flops while we wandered. Sean insisted on continuing our Japanese tutoring at the store and he would pick something up off the shelf and hold it out to me, intoning the name seriously in Japanese until I'd repeated it perfectly and put the item in the cart. Unfortunately, I was falling asleep on my feet while we checked out.

"Sorry, Pookie, I guess I could have taken a list and left you home to sleep while I shopped." He apologized, claiming my hand as we walked to the car.

"It's okay." I said, stifling a yawn. "If you'd left me home and asleep, then I wouldn't have gotten to learn how to say peanut butter in Japanese."

Sean laughed. "I guess not. I'm not sure how helpful it will be in a social situation but it was fun to say." He opened the car door for me, letting me settle in my seat while he put the groceries in the trunk and came around to get in behind the wheel.

I fell asleep in the car and he unloaded all the groceries before waking me up long enough to take me in and tuck me into bed.

We slept until almost noon and I did enjoy waking up in his arms. He'd again tried to take over the entire bed while I slept and I woke up with his arms around me… as well as his legs. "Sean…" I pushed at his arms. "Time to wake up… it's late. We're not going to have time to make everything we want to."

"Shhhh Pookie. Just a few more minutes." He mumbled before kissing my neck.

"Sean…" I whined. "C'mon… I have to go to the bathroom."

His eyes popped open at that and he shifted me so that he could look at me. "Really?"

"Yes, it's almost noon. It's been forever since I went to the bathroom."

"Okay, okay." He said with a sigh and a frown before loosening his grip on me so that I could get out of bed.

"Thank you." I said, bending to kiss him lightly. "Get up lazy, I'll teach you some breakfast tricks." I said before grabbing my bag and heading into the bathroom. I emerged a while later, fully dressed and ready to go, finding the bedroom empty. I smiled and headed down to the kitchen.

"POOOKIE!" Sean grinned at me.

I laughed. "Sean…" I shook my head at him. "Boy, when you wake up finally, you WAKE up." I teased, going over to hug him and look up at him. "Hungry?"

"Yes." He nodded.

'Okay then… how about eggs to get started today?" I asked.

"Sounds good."

"Great. We can make egg mugs." I said, grabbing a couple eggs, milk, cheese and some sausage crumbles that we'd gotten the night before. "And we just need mugs."

"Gotcha." Sean said, going over and grabbing two mugs down from the cupboard.

I studied them for a moment before looking up at him. "Get the notebook." I said. "You're going to want to write it down." I said. "It's pretty easy. It's a microwave cooking thing." I stressed the word microwave.

He mumbled under his breath, concentrating on writing my words down in Japanese.

I waited until he was looking at me again. "Microwave." I said, pointedly glancing at the mugs. One of them had a metal rim and printing on it.

His brow furrowed. "Yes, I wrote that down." I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Okay, time out for a moment." I said, taking his hand and grabbing my phone. "This is why one of the mugs is a bad idea." I said, pulling up YouTube and searching for what I wanted. I shoved my phone under his nose. "Watch."

His eyes rounded as he watched the microwave go 'ka-BLAM' and the entire kitchen caught on fire. "Uhhhh…"

"No metal in the microwave." I said, tapping the notebook. "Write it down and go get a different mug."

"I never realized that was … so drastic." He said as he jotted it down and moved back to the cupboard to swap out the mug.

"Definitely not a good idea." I said. "So no leaving spoons or forks in the mugs either."

He nodded vigorously and jotted it down.

I smiled and assembled the ingredients for the egg mugs before putting them in the microwave for a few minutes, stirring them and then adding one more minute. "Done." I said, pulling them out and sprinkling them both with more cheese before I handed his over and we went to sit at the counter to eat.

Once we finished our breakfast, and Sean watched a ton more 'ka-blam' microwave videos while we ate, I cleaned up our breakfast dishes and put him to work chopping things.

I mean, why wouldn't you have a doctor who's done a surgery rotation chopping onions and potatoes before you have them slice up a bunch of apples?

Best sous chef ever.

"Brilliant." I complimented him. "You could totally compete in a Top Chef prep contest."

He laughed and beamed at me. "Thanks, Pookie."

I'd been telling him the steps to making pie crust while he was chopping and he was so cute, pausing to write things down and then repeating the steps to me in Japanese. We'd decided to just make one pie and that it was okay to have a slice for dessert tonight.

Well, how could I possibly make Sean wait when it was his favorite dessert…?


	45. Chapter 42

I fell on his couch in exhaustion. He flopped down next to me. "Good job, Sean." I said, managing to turn my head to look at him. "Everything looks great."

He smiled at me. "Thank you Pookie. I'm really enjoying the time spent in the kitchen." He admitted, reaching for my hand.

"I'm glad to hear that. I think we'll work together on cooking off and on for the rest of the summer."

"Please." He said. "I can't wait for the next thing you will show me."

"Well." I said, thinking for a moment. "We've got a good dinner down, a breakfast that isn't just a pop tart and a dessert. I guess we should work on a soup in the crockpot tomorrow morning that we can have for lunch when we come home before we have to make dinner for Owen."

"That sounds interesting. Is that enough time to cook it?"

"Sure." I smiled. "If you wanted it for dinner, you'd cook it all day on low, we want it sooner so we'll cook it on high instead. And it is a soup that the boys all love so you could absolutely pull one over on them by making it. They'd think it was me."

His face lit up. "A chance to prank Luke? Oh, count me in Pookie." He laughed. "I can't wait to pull that one off." He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it before turning over and kissing my palm.

"Well then, we'll just have to make sure it happens." I said in a breathy tone of voice. My air supply had been sucked right out of me at the touch of his lips on my skin. I shifted, leaning over him and studying him for a moment.

"What's on your mind?" he asked, looking up into my eyes.

I reached up with my free hand and gently caressed his cheek. "Do I still make you happy?" I asked softly. "As much as I did when you first met me?"

His green eyes sparkled before they grew serious and he reached out with his free hand and caressed my face the way I was touching him. "After all this time, this summer we have planned, you have to ask?"

I shrugged. "I don't get a lot of one on one time with you and Owen. It can be a bit overwhelming for me because of how much I love all of you. I never want to risk losing any of you simply because I didn't remember to make sure you individually still want me around." I leaned in and brushed my lips gently against his. "Lily said it's important." I murmured in his ear.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in tight, holding me on his lap and hugging me tightly at the same time. "I love you Sang." He said seriously, brushing his lips against my temple. "With every breath I take… my heart beats faster when you're around." He rested his cheek against my hair. "I can't imagine life without you, I think everything is better when you're around."

"From the day I met you?"

"From the very first day when I saved you from Mr. McCoy." He said, reaching between us to tilt my head up. "You make me so happy." He said, gazing into my eyes.

I smiled. "You make me happy too." I said. "I love your sweet, funny side. I absolutely enjoy the giggle cures so much that I often think of trying to giggle all day long when you aren't with me so that you'll have to come find me and administer them."

He beeped my nose. "That might be unfair to those you're with."

I shrugged and grinned. "They don't administer the cure, what can I say? I can only be treated by the best." I said softly. "My first kiss…"

"I didn't realize that at the time or I would not have kissed you while we were laying down on my bed. Owen was right to chastise me, it was a shade past appropriate."

"I wouldn't have wanted it any other way." I said. "I cherish that memory. It was the first time I didn't feel so lost about what to do. The boys would all get so close and then hesitate. I didn't know what was going on, that they were having to restrain themselves to keep from kissing me. It was confusing. I may have felt a little lost because then I was learning how to kiss but once we'd kissed, everything fell in line so easily."

He smiled. "Well, I don't regret it, that's not what I meant. I think I would have just rather kissed you out on my deck, in the moonlight that night after we'd managed to get rid of Owen."

I laughed softly. "Did he only stay because he was worried about my virtue?"

He chuckled. "Maybe a bit. If you recall, we may have had a bit of an argument about his treatment of you. I called him out on his behavior and pointed out how conflicted he made you feel. Next thing I know, he's trying to figure out how to apologize to you and he picked up the game. He started playing around with it and I eventually went to bed. I didn't realize he'd stayed all night and played your game until I got up in the morning."

"I'd wondered about that. I did feel a bit uncomfortable." I admitted. "I heard you talking. I stopped walking because it dawned on me I shouldn't have left my shoes and game in there but then you were arguing and I didn't want to go back in so I left things where they were."

He pressed his lips against mine, kissing me gently, leading me deeper into the kiss as he had the first time he'd kissed me. "No harm done, Pookie." He said, pulling back to look at me. "Everything happens for a reason and I believe that was a turning point for our boy."

I smiled. "Well, he certainly did seem to like me better after that." I said before shifting in his arms so that I could still be on his lap but rest my head on his shoulder. "We **_ARE_** doing the right thing, aren't we…?"

"Oh, it's absolutely the right thing, Pookie. My brothers are happier than they've ever been." He said. "And that's with knowing Owen for over 10 years and the rest of them for almost 7 years. You calm our fears, chase away the shadows and help us face our demons. We couldn't do it without you."

"Thank you." I murmured before kissing him lightly again. "Someday, I want to hear stories about my little Academy boys. I know a bit about how you and Owen hooked up, thanks to Mrs. Rose at the camping trip but I need stories now. Especially how you managed to recruit five little boys who were basically the Robin Hoods of their school."

He chuckled and beeped my nose again with his finger. "Maybe the next family meeting. We have dinner at the Lee's this weekend and we'll be talking about the Florida trip. Perhaps the next weekend we can have a sharing weekend and talk about the good old days."

"Sounds good to me." I said, glancing at the clock. "Shall we go check to see if the pie is as good as we think it is? I need to make sure we have everything for the lunch soup."

"That works. I have vanilla ice cream in the freezer, that'll be nice with the pie." He commented, helping me up off of his lap before he got up from the couch and pulled me close to his side, his arm around my shoulders. I slipped my arm around his waist to keep my balance as we headed to the kitchen.

"I think that's an excellent idea."


	46. Chapter 43

We'd ended up sharing the slice of pie. I loved watching Sean's eyes light up as we tried it. "Just think, I've enabled you. Now you can make your own pie." I teased as he restrained himself from licking the plate.

"True. Or if I at least get the ingredients, maybe I can coax you into making it." He grinned at me.

"Maybe." I chuckled before taking the plate from him and going over to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. I glanced at the clock. "Time for a timesaver recipe step?" I asked. "It'll make things go faster in the morning."

"I'm all for that." He said, reaching for the notebook he'd been writing things down in. "Fire away."

I chuckled and gave him first a list of all the things we'd need to make the soup for our lunch. After he repeated them all in Japanese and written them down, we worked together to pull everything out and arranged it on the counter while we opened, chopped, browned and stirred our way to a full crock pot insert. "Taco Soup… a lunch time favorite for all the boys." I said. "Just put the lid on it and then it goes into the fridge. We'll put it in the crock pot and turn it on to low before we go to the hospital tomorrow morning."

Sean looked so happy as he did what I said and carefully put the crockery into the fridge. "This is great. I love that you love me enough to take the time to help me learn to cook." He closed the fridge and pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arms around me tightly.

"You're welcome." I said before yawning. He laughed at me and beeped me on the end of my nose.

"And off to bed you go. Nurse Pookie has a very full day tomorrow with organizing my office and sneaking down to Maternity to look at the babies." He dropped a kiss on the tip of my nose.

I smiled and tilted my head as I leaned into him, kissing him gently before backing out of his arms. "Then I'm actually going to grab a quick bath and go to bed. It will also make things faster in the morning. "

"All right." He said, letting me go. "I'll be up in a little bit."

I took my bath and got into my pj's and slipped into bed. I don't know what time he actually came to bed because I'd fallen asleep before he got there.

He surprised me in the morning, waking me up with breakfast in bed. He'd managed egg mugs and toast with a side of cut up fruit to go with our bottled coffees. "Rise and shine, Pookie. We have time to enjoy breakfast before we go to the hospital. I put the soup in the crockpot on high, that's what you said last night, right?" He asked, waiting for me to sit up in the bed before arranging the tray on my lap. He sat down on the bed, facing me as he reached for his coffee first.

I smiled. "Yes, Sean. High is fine and breakfast looks great." I said. He beamed at me as I started to eat breakfast. We talked over breakfast before I got out of bed and dressed in a skirt and top while he took care of the breakfast dishes. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and headed downstairs, double checking the crockpot and its contents before we headed out, off to the hospital for a morning together.

It didn't take long for me to settle in at his office while he made his rounds and visited his patients. I spent the time straightening his desk and staring at the murals that Gabriel had painted on his office walls. I pondered a few ideas for a moment before smiling slightly and busying myself back with the files. I got up and filed a few things in his filing cabinet before I realized it was a bit of a lost cause and I shouldn't do any filing until he had a chance to actually clean things up a bit more. I was sitting behind his desk, playing my game when he popped back into the office.

"Pookie!" he grinned at me and dropped into the chair across from where I was sitting.

"Everything okay?" I asked, pausing the game and studying him.

"Everything's fine. All patients appear to be healthy and happy and my favorite Nurse Pookie is sitting behind my desk in a fairly clean and organized office." Sean winked.

"Glad to hear that. I like for you to have healthy and happy patients."

"Mrs. Rose is here for a checkup, would you like to come say hi?" He asked.

"Oh, I'd love to. I haven't seen her in so long." I perked up.

"And then we can go ogle the babies." Sean said. "And go home for lunch because we will be all done and able to get dinner ready for Owen."

"That's a wonderful plan." I responded, getting up from his chair.

He stood up as well, taking my hand. He pressed a kiss to my knuckles and tucked my hand around his arm as we left his office.

We stopped in to see Mrs. Rose and spent several moments talking in sign language. I was glad for the chance to practice a bit more with her. It seemed like it had been so long since I'd signed. I glanced at Sean. "I'm a bit rusty." I said. "I need to work on this sometime."

Mrs. Rose beamed at me before signing ~you're doing fine. I can see you're happy. ~

I smiled at her and signed Thank you to her. "I am happy." I told her, dropping my hands. "Everything changed for me after camping and as much as I've been working through a lot of my issues, I couldn't be happier with where I am." I said seriously.

She studied me for a long moment before reaching out and gently patting my cheek. ~Happiness is the key. Family first, yes but no one said you have to be miserable. ~

I chuckled and raised my hands to sign to her again. ~I have not been miserable at all. I am well taken care of and happy." I nodded. She beamed again before leaning forward, waiting to see if I'd allow a kiss on the cheek. I had to take a deep breath but I nodded and leaned into her, letting her kiss me on both cheeks before I straightened up. "Thank you." I murmured, reading acceptance in her gaze. She turned her attention to Sean and I could only make out a few words that bordered on him choosing to make an honest woman out of me at some point.

His ears turned a faint shade of pink but he beamed at her before leaning in and kissing both of her cheeks before bidding her a good afternoon. He reached for me again, wrapping my arm around his as he led me away, heading for the stairwell so we could go down a floor to the maternity ward.


	47. Chapter 44

I was captivated by the babies.

I was thrilled when Sean tugged me into the nursery and the on duty nurse looked over my badge and gave me a gown and a pair of gloves and escorted me into the feeding room so that I could help with bottle feeding one of the babies. I sat in the rocking chair, extremely nervous at holding the baby and looked up. "You're sure this is… okay…?" I asked softly as the nurse and Sean arranged me in the chair so that I could be ready for the baby.

"Of course Pookie." He said

I looked at him dubiously. "How can you be sure? I've never actually done this before."

He knelt in front of me and reached up, touching my cheek. "It's okay Sang." He said. "It's natural to be nervous. Think of it as a test…" He smiled. "Someday when we're here and getting to hold little girl and boy baby Greens, then you won't be as nervous because you'll have done it before."

I smiled at the look of contentment that hit his face. "You're really committed to this and looking forward to that day, aren't you… when we'll have a baby of our own?"

"I love the idea." He admitted, getting back to his feet and moving out of the way when the nurse came in and gently laid a little pink bundle in my arms. His face lit up with a smile when he saw her in my arms.

"Okay, support the head here." The nurse said, waiting as I shifted my hold. "And here's the bottle. She'll probably drink about half and then you'll need to burp her." She said, showing me how to shift the baby to do that. "Let me know if you need something."

"Okay. Thank you." I called after her before looking down at the little girl in my arms. "Oh, hello precious…" I murmured as her little brow furrowed and she looked at me with a blue eyed gaze for a moment before her eyes focused on the bottle I was lowering closer to her and her mouth popped open and closed a few times like a baby bird looking for the worm its mama brought it. I chuckled softly as I held the bottle to her lips and she opened her mouth and eagerly began sucking on it and drinking the bottle.

"Beautiful." Sean murmured before winking at me and pulling out his phone. He took a few quick pictures of me before tucking it away in his pocket. "I'll be back for you, okay? Don't leave the nursery until I'm back for you."

"Okay." I nodded, glancing at him before I looked back at the baby in my arms, she'd raised her arms and had one tiny hand resting on my finger as I held the bottle for her. I barely registered Sean leaving the room as I fed her. About halfway through, I shifted her and burped her before settling her in my arms again to finish drinking her bottle.

She blinked at me while she drank it, the little eyelids getting lower and lower over her eyes until she actually fell asleep just as she finished the bottle. I shifted her again, holding her in my arms as I rubbed her back to encourage burping again as I rocked her gently. She did burp a tiny little cute burp and nuzzled her nose into my chest before sighing and relaxing in my arms as she fell asleep. The nurse hadn't come back in and I was both comfortable and a bit amazed at the baby I held.

I hadn't been around babies much, I was basically the baby in my own family and outside of Jessica, and none of the others had younger siblings. But it felt like she trusted me. I wondered if this was how the guys felt once I'd finally started to trust them and would relax into them as I fell asleep. I couldn't resist kissing the top of her head as we rocked.

A noise at the door drew my attention and I smiled at Sean in the doorway. "All right?" he asked.

"Definitely." I said, still rocking steady in the chair. "She fell asleep." I said.

"Which is good. She sleeps a lot." He said.

"What's her name?" I asked quietly, glancing down at the top of her head. I looked at him when he didn't answer.

"She doesn't have one." He finally said. My heart clenched in my chest and I stared at him. "She's not like me." He was quick to reassure me. "Well, not in the aspect that she wasn't abandoned. Her …" He ran a hand down his face. "Her mother is in a coma after an accident, and her dad is in the military and they're working on trying to get him home as soon as possible. So no one was able to name her yet."

"Oh that's so sad." I said. "I hope her mother gets better." My eyelashes fluttered for a moment and I closed my eyes before opening them and looking at Sean. "No little girl should be without her mama who loves her."

Sean nodded silently, reading the pain in my eyes at the fact that I had done just that. Especially after the age of 9 when my monster of a step mother began to punish me more and more for the slightest of things. It may have been all the medications she began taking for her medical condition or it may have been because my looks changed after I turned 9 and I began to remind her of my birth mother in looks.

Sometimes, I just wished I had a picture of her. She was my age when she had me. And in spite of the little angel in my arms right now, I really didn't fancy the idea of becoming a mother at my age. It was an overwhelming thought. "Couldn't we name her a temporary name?" I asked.

"I don't think we've thought about that yet." Sean said. "What were you thinking?"

I studied her again before looking at him. "Angelica… Angel for short." My lips curved up in a smile. "Angelica Rose."

"Oh that's a perfectly lovely name." He said. "I will let the nurses know that you've deemed her in need of a name and it's the name they can use to talk about her treatment." He came over and beeped my nose with a finger before bending and kissing my forehead as he stole a glance at the baby in my arms. "She's beautiful." He said, kissing my temple before he straightened and went out into the office to let them know.


	48. Chapter 45

I rocked Angel for a bit longer until the nurse came back to take her back to her bed. "Thank you." I said to her as I got up and followed her out of the room.

"Oh, thank you. You're welcome back any time."

I smiled at her and couldn't resist running my palm gently one more time over Angel's head, oblivious to the fact that Sean was taking another picture of me and sending it to the rest of our family. I wrapped my arm around his waist as we headed to the elevator. "I know I'm not due back here for a couple weeks but do you think I could come check on her tomorrow after work? And maybe as much as possible until either her mom is better or her dad's around?" I looked up at him.

"I think that is a fine idea and should be very easy to arrange around your schedule." He said, dropping a kiss on my forehead as we waited for the elevator. "I'm all done on my floor, ready to head home for lunch?"

"And to start our dinner prep for Owen." I said with a nod. He chuckled and we got into the elevator and headed up to get his things from his office. "Wait… is Angel's mom on this floor?"

"She is actually." He said, studying me. "What's on your mind, Pookie?"

"Can I go visit her?" I asked. His gaze remained steady as my fun-loving smart doctor man, pulled a trait out of the books of his bff and quirked an eyebrow at me in a very definitive Owen Blackbourne look. I huffed a sigh and leaned up against the wall by the door to his office and crossed my arms. "What?" I asked defensively. "Stop being Blackbourne." I grumbled at him.

"Sorry Pookie." He had the good grace to flush slightly at my words, words that called him out for what he was doing to me. "Why do you want to go visit her?" he asked, mildly, choosing his words carefully.

I bit my lower lip. "I want to tell her that her daughter is beautiful." I said. "I want to remind her that she's beautiful and her daughter needs her to be a strong role model of survival… to be around and love her more than anything and not abandon her to a future of wondering … wondering how much her mama wanted or loved her." My eyes filled up with tears and I sniffled, rubbing at my nose with the back of my hand as the tears threatened to spill over. "Is it assuming too much for me to think that she's in a coma of some sort?"

He closed the distance between us and reached out, cupping my face and rubbing the tears away as they left tracks behind on my cheeks. "Oh Pookie…" He crooned. "Don't cry, please don't cry…" he slid his arms around me and pulled me into his chest.

"I just need her to know what she has to fight for." I mumbled, crying still into his chest as my arms slid around his waist and I clung to him.

He rubbed my back in long gentle strokes from the top of my head, smoothing my hair down and then all the way down my back to the base of my spine. I felt him kiss the top of my head and then my forehead before he sighed softly. "Yes, Pookie. Angel's mama is in a coma right now. And you're totally right, of course. She needs to hear about her beautiful baby girl. That will help give her the edge she needs, the reminder of what she has to live for." He said, shifting away slightly to look into my eyes. "And you're so smart. We hadn't even thought about that yet. She hasn't been responding to us when she is seemingly awake."

"Well of course not." I frowned at him, pushing out of his arms and putting my hands on my hips. "You seriously mean to tell me, knowing all we do about the fact that people in coma's can hear and understand what is said to them… that NO One…" I chopped a hand through the air for emphasis. "NO ONE at all, has bothered to reassure the woman that she had her baby, the baby is beautiful and completely healthy and fine and she can go ahead and focus on getting well and waking up so that she cannot worry about it? She probably thinks she miscarried." I was getting riled up, mad and upset that they'd been leaving her in the dark. "And why can't the baby visit her? Surely there's some way to rig a carrier or something so that the baby could be snuggled up to her mama, even while mama's sleeping for comfort."

"Wow, Nurse Pookie, I had no idea you would be this passionate about things."

I glared at him, eyes narrowing. "You'd better not be trying to make a joke."

He raised his hands and stepped back. "I'm not, I swear. I honestly mean what I say, we hadn't begun to start the next phase of her treatment but what you just said makes so much sense. Why not let the baby visit. She can be under nurse supervision anyway and we'd be able to comfort both of them at the same time."

"Okay, as long as you are convinced that it's something that would be good for both mama and baby." I said.

He smiled then. "I swear it." He said, pulling me into his arms again and kissing me lightly. "Now, for today though, let's go check on mama before we leave for the day." He kept an arm around my shoulders as he walked me down the hall to the room where Angel's mama was. He checked first before letting me come into the room. "I'll just give you a moment here. I want to talk to Dr. Roberts about your brilliant plan." He said.

"Okay." I nodded.

"Hey… how convinced are you that my cooking is good enough to not just feed Owen tonight but maybe Dr. Roberts and his wife?" He asked curiously. "You know, he's been your manager while we've finished out the year. It's almost time for a check in and he could report back to the academy that you're fine." He said, watching me.

"I think that you are very much ready to cook for anyone really." I said. "If you'd like to invite them over to dinner tonight that is fine with me. You'll just want to prepare Owen for additional people that will be over for a while."

"Okay." He nodded. "I'll take care of that too while I'm away."

I smiled at him before he left the room before I slid my chair over next to the bed and glanced around for a moment, somewhat unsure of what I was supposed to do now. I checked the whiteboard on the wall, hoping to find her name. I smiled when I saw it and reached over, taking her hand. "Hi…" I said softly. "You don't know me but my name is Sang and I just had to come see you, Meg. You were in an accident and I know you can hear me but you're probably too weak and not feeling very well so you don't have to say anything." I said, squeezing her hand gently. "But if you ever want to join in the conversation, you can just squeeze my hand."

I looked around the room and realized she didn't have anything by way of flowers or otherwise in her room and made a mental note to talk to Owen about fixing that problem.

"Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you are going to be okay. They had to deliver your baby early because of your injuries. Meg, she's beautiful. She's going to look just like her mama someday. You would be so proud of her, she drinks from a bottle, and she's a very good eater." I knew I was rambling. "I thought you should know that in case you were worried and could somehow sense you weren't pregnant anymore. I have heard that her dad is working on trying to get home as soon as possible." I kept on holding her hand. "I hope you don't mind, but she didn't have a name so I may have overstepped my boundary but she's now being called Angelica Rose… Angel for short while she's there. She's so beautiful." I murmured.

"You have to wake up, Meg. She needs you. She's going to need you to be a strong survivor to show her she has nothing to fear. She can't be alone in this world without you, mama. You love her, I know you do. You have to tell her, Meg. Tell her every day that she was worth every pain and sacrifice you made. That she was worth everything that you lost… because you love her. You have to tell her you love her every day." I reached out and smoothed out a strand of hair on the pillow. "I suggest more than once a day. Maybe in the mornings when she wakes up and absolutely always before bed. You choose when you'll tell her another time or two." I sighed. "You can't leave her alone, Meg. She needs you, needs to know you, needs to love you and be loved by you. Let her dance. Tutu's are always an excellent choice of something to wear. There's nothing wrong with cookies or pie for breakfast. Love her for who she is and what she means to you."

I glanced up, blinking at the fact that Sean was now leaning against the door and just watching me. "What?" I murmured.

He shook his head and signed to me. ~Nothing. Just listening and observing. Do what you were doing.~

I gave him a slight smile and nodded. "I should probably go." I said to Meg, as if she was my bff and awake and actually talking to me. "My boyfriend is a doctor here and he's off work now so we really need to go but I'm going to be back tomorrow to visit Angel and rock her for you and I'll come see you too, okay Meg?" I gave her hand another squeeze and studied her. She needed flowers from Owen's garden and absolutely needed some help from Gabriel too. I'd be back tomorrow with both of them if I could swing it. "All right, mama. Get some rest and get ready to wake up soon, okay? Your baby girl needs you." I let go of her hand and slid the chair back into place before going to Sean's side.

He dropped an arm on my shoulders and steered me towards the elevator so we could go down to ground level and over to the parking garage. "Good job Pookie." He said, kissing my temple.

I sighed softly and leaned into him. "Thank you." I said. "I can't leave them alone." I said. "I have to come see them every day, if I can. At least until she's awake and calls me a creepy coma stalker or until her husband decides I'm no longer needed and can just go away."

"I think that can definitely be arranged." Sean said. "We can absolutely work around your work schedule for a while." He said.

"Sounds good. Now, off to home again to have taco soup for lunch and begin our meal prep for tonight." I eyed him for a moment. "Owen, Dr. and Mrs. Roberts and the two of us, right?"

"Yes, Pookie. Dinner for a party of 5." He said.

"And you're sure you can handle it?" I asked, smiling slightly.

"Yes, Pookie. With your teaching and guidance, I'm absolutely able to handle cooking dinner tonight."

"Good." I smiled, giving him a squeeze around the middle before we started to walk again towards the car.


	49. Chapter 46

We enjoyed our lunch once we were home. The soup had turned out perfectly and I was a little more than worried that Sean wouldn't stop eating it long enough to work on making the dinner that we'd promised Owen. I glanced at the clock. "Come on, Sean… we have to get started on dinner prep or we'll never eat tonight at a decent time."

"fine fine." He grumbled but got up, taking his dishes to the kitchen. I followed him in with my own dishes. "Thank you for teaching me to make soup, Pookie."

"you're welcome." I smiled up at him, hugging him around the waist for a moment.

His eyes lit up and he wrapped his arms around me in a return hug before he dropped a swift kiss on my lips. "Now, meatloaf and potatoes… what else was on the menu?"

I chuckled and went over to take a seat on the stool at the kitchen counter, my notebook out as he worked on filling the dishwasher up with our lunch dishes and he worked on my Japanese vocabulary as he worked.

Dinner was safely in the oven and I had set him to work on making the salad while I set the table for our dinner with Owen. "I'm going to go change for dinner." I called out to him as I set the last fork in place.

He looked up and grinned at me. "off to slip into something a little more comfortable?" he asked.

"Not necessarily." I frowned slightly. "Maybe at least something a little more up to dining with Owen." I said as I headed up to his room to dress for dinner.

I heard the doorbell ring while I was putting finishing touches on my hair. I'd changed into a summer dress in shades of purple and gray, pulled my hair up into a long flat classic ponytail and only bothered to dab on a bit of lip gloss and waved the mascara wand in the general vicinity of my eyelashes before heading downstairs. I left shoes off because we were not going anywhere and out of respect for Sean's upbringing, we just didn't wear shoes in the house.

It was actually a bit of a thrill and amusement whenever I saw Owen in socks.

Because it seemed so out of character for him.

"Good evening, my love." I smiled, walking into the kitchen where Owen and Sean were talking.

"Good evening, darling." His eyes lit up when he saw me and he moved over, pulling me into his arms for a brief kiss in greeting. "You look lovely."

"Thank you." I said. "Did you have a good day today?"

"I did." He inclined his head slightly at me. "How was your hospital day today?"

I glanced at Sean, seeing a slight smile playing on his lips. "It was good." I said.

"Oh come on Pookie. Take Owen into sit down while I pull it out and tell him all about today's adventures."

"All right. If you're sure that you don't need my help…?"

"It's all under control." Sean reassured me and I took Owen by the hand and took him into the dining room.

Owen pulled out a chair for me and seated me before sitting down next to me on the right. I realized he'd put me at the head of the table. "So, what happened today?" he asked, leaning forward slightly, eyes intent on my face as he waited for me to fill him in.

I sighed slightly before telling him about the baby and her mother. I managed to ramble my way through quite an explanation until his eyes twinkled at me and he held up a hand to get me to stop talking. "Sorry." I blushed and waited for him to say what he was wanting to say.

"it's quite all right, darling." He reassured me. "I'm happy to see that you've found something interesting to occupy your time." He pushed his glasses up farther on his nose, one finger adjusting the corner of them. "We will certainly do what we can to help out and that means making sure that they have what they need for now. I'll check with Dr. Roberts to see if he has any idea about how the work Is going to get her husband back soon. You spending time with them will be good." He nodded.

"Thank you." I said softly as Sean came into the dining room, bringing plates with him.

"Voila!" He grinned as he set the plates down, first in front of me and then one in front of Owen. "Be right back." He said, heading back into the kitchen to retrieve his plate as well as the salad he'd fixed for dinner.

"Well done, Sean." I said, having been studying the plate. It was very artistically displayed and honestly, I thought it might have come from a restaurant kitchen. I glanced at Owen as Sean took his seat to the left of me.

"I'm impressed with the plating." Owen said, reaching out and taking a sip of his water.

Sean beamed. "I was trying." He admitted. "It's not as easy as it seems on tv. I found it to be a very hard and exhausting exercise."

I blinked slightly and took a sip of my water. "It was hard?" I asked.

Sean shrugged, even though his eyes seemed to light up with a twinkle of amusement. Owen glanced between the two of us for a moment. "And Sang just couldn't wait to have her hands all over the meat." He said, explaining the process of making the meatloaf.

"Is that so?" Owen asked dryly before cutting into his meat loaf.

"That's what she said."

I rubbed my nose slightly and leaned forward, checking on the food that Sean had made, tasting it thoughtfully as I tried it all. I looked up to find him looking at me instead of eating. "Eat your dinner Sean." I said. "You did a great job. Everything's cooked just right."

He beamed at me and grabbed his fork. "Thanks Pookie." He said before trying a bite of his dinner. "It is good." He said after swallowing, glancing at Owen. "Was it as good for you as it was for me?"

Now I was almost sure something was going on, I'd never heard Sean talk with such a sound of innocence before and he seemed to honestly be trying to pick away at Owen's façade. Trying to get him to relax? Maybe.

Sounding weird and strangely like the script to a bad movie? Yeah, definitely.

Owen arched an eyebrow at him. "You appear to have been spending time with a few of the boys. Or watching bad movies." He commented. "Can't we just enjoy a nice meal, the three of us?"

I gave Sean a questioning look and he shrugged before grinning. "I was just having fun." He said. "Time to eat dinner because that way we can get to the apple pie that was made for dessert."

"You still have pie? And didn't have to make another one?" Owen smiled slightly. Sean nodded. "I'm completely shocked. You never have any hesitation getting down and dirty while you eat pie." He said, glancing at me. "I've seen him practically bury his head in the pie while he ate it out of the tin."

"I love pie eating contests." Sean said with a day dreaming look on his face. I was almost certain he might have been thinking something other than actual pie and I felt my cheeks heat up with a sudden flush of color.

I cleared my throat softly and took a sip of water. "Maybe there will be a county fair somewhere before the end of summer and we can see about getting you entered into a contest." I said innocently before dedicating my attention back to my plate to eat my dinner. I heard strangled gasps from both of them but I ignored them. I wasn't sure what was going on with the strange dinner conversation tonight but I wasn't going to put up with any more of it and I refused to look at them until they returned themselves to being Sean and Owen.

Masters of intriguing dinner conversation.


	50. Chapter 47

My schedule was changed at the Diner. Uncle was gracious enough to remove me from the schedule so that I could spend more time at the hospital. I found it to be a personal mission to spend time with Angel and then also with her mama.

The boys understood that and I kept my cooking class sessions with Luke, the golf games with Owen and Sean and a different one of my boys, usually Victor or Kota because North, Nathan and Silas, while athletic, did not particularly enjoy golf. I went to the symphony with Victor, shopping again with Gabriel and Luke tagged along. We had a good time shopping. Gabriel was very enthused about the idea of us dressing for a few days on our trip in Disney character inspired clothing. We managed to loop Erica and Jessica into the idea as well and I was happy that Jessica was more than enthusiastic about getting to dress up as Merida from Brave. I suspect it had a lot to do with the fact she was going to be able to accessorize with any number of her arrow and archery inspired accessories that she owned. I was going to be in pink as I planned on being Aurora from Sleeping Beauty. The boys were slightly less enthused with some of our ideas.

Although, strangely, North warmed to the idea first. I'm not quite sure why but I mean, he was going to be Grumpy on our Snow White day and we were making him wear all black… no real surprise there… and dressing him as Mordu, the antagonist bear from Brave.

I had my mornings with North and surprised him when I was fascinated with the inner workings of car engines. Apparently no one in the family liked to learn about them. "well." I shrugged, glancing up at him. "If my ghost status means I don't get to drive legally then I should at least help you with maintaining them. If you're out and there's a problem with one of the cars, I could maybe fix it until you could really fix it." I said. He flashed a smile at me and kissed me on the tip of the nose before hugging me and nodding his head.

I could see the wheels turning about what he could teach me next.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone that I was suddenly in charge of oil changes.

I'd beaten him at a challenge to see who could change the oil the fastest. Victor was dismayed at the thought that I was changing oil but pleased enough when I finished his oil change before North finished the oil change on Owen's car.

I also enjoyed my morning out on the boat with Silas and North. I was happy to discover that I loved boating. Silas was pretty pumped too. We had a Greek style picnic out in the middle of the lake we were at and North graciously excused himself to drive the boat for a while so that Silas and I could have some time alone.

Sean and I went out for our Sushi date. It was a lot of fun and I tried a lot of things before deciding that I was going to limit myself to smoked salmon, tofu, cucumber rolls or basically anything that didn't involve actual raw fish. I was delighted to find sesame noodles, pork dumplings and egg rolls on the travelling belt as well. Sean laughed at my efforts to try more types of sushi. Apparently I had a tendency to wrinkle my nose and scrunch my face up like a rabbit before I even managed to get the sushi into my mouth with the chopsticks.

I pointed out that it was probably my tendency to overload it with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce that made me actually wrinkle my nose.

Sean poked me in the side and kissed my temple before finishing off the types of sushi that I didn't like. Then we got to the good part. He introduced me to green tea ice cream and banana tempura. OH Yum. I seriously could eat those two things all day long.

Sadly, we didn't make it to dinner with his parents for their anniversary. They were called to an urgent event in Japan. I think Sean said one of the aunts or uncles had passed away. He wasn't required to go so we ended up facetiming with his parents on their anniversary.

He was very proud of how well I carried on a rapid fire conversation with his mother in Japanese. We'd been working very hard on my conversation skills and I'd struggled a bit in talking to Victor the week before. But once we were talking to his parents and he'd introduced me to them, it all just fell into place and I felt like I'd been speaking Japanese my entire life.

I politely excused myself from the conversation, letting them have some family time together and overheard his mother praise him for his choice of young ladies.

Apparently, I'd won her over with just one conversation because I'd been more than happy and willing to speak to her in her native tongue. I couldn't help but be pleased myself and we went out for green tea ice cream and banana tempura after he was done with the facetime conversation before he took me to Nathan's house for the week. I wasn't working or doing anything that week but we'd decided that Nathan's house made the best location for vacation packing and Gabriel was staying over for the week as well and between the two of us, there were lists to be made and checked twice and suitcases to be packed and repacked and packed again before we could actually leave the next weekend.


	51. Chapter 48

"Great news, Pookie." Sean smiled at me as he stopped by with Owen to bring over his bags and a well stocked first aid kit to be packed into the vans.

"oh?" I smiled at him, tilting my head up for the kiss he dropped on my lips. "What sort of great news?"

He pulled away for a moment before dropping another kiss on my lips. "Meg woke up from her coma. While she was holding Angel this morning AND after her husband arrived."

My eyes widened. "That's amazing Sean." I grinned at him. "Amazing and wonderful. How are they doing?"

"As well as can be expected." He admitted. "But they're doing well and Meg liked the name you gave Angel and they're actually going to keep it for her." I hugged him tight. "Tomorrow, I'll take you to the hospital, she said something about asking you to be godmother."

"Did she really?"

"I don't lie to you, Pookie. She heard you. She knew your name."

"Well then I can't wait to go visit tomorrow." I kept my arm wrapped around his waist as we headed inside, leaving Kota to talk packing logistics with Owen.

I felt him press a kiss to the top of my head and I looked up at him. "What's on your mind?"

He smiled. "Nothing really. I've missed you. My work schedule has been crazy since we were last together even if I did see you every time you visited Meg."

I gave him a squeeze around his waist. "I know, I completely understand. Fortunately, we are about to embark on a fantastic vacation and we'll have a lot of time together."

"Whenever we are away from Erica." Sean said.

I frowned. "Oh… right. Because she still thinks, because we've let her, that I'm still with Kota?"

He shrugged. "We'll figure it out. I think Owen and I have already figured out a bit of it. You won't ride with them so you'll be able to be yourself in the van. And then there are plenty of activities planned that will involve a lot of shuffling around and riding rides with other people all the time. It'll be fine."

"Of course it will." I nodded.

"So come along now, I've heard we're having a bit of a marvel movie marathon starting tonight." Sean said, his arm still around my shoulders.

"Sounds fun." I said. "What's for dinner?"

He grinned down at me. "I heard there's going to be pizza." I smiled and stretched up to kiss his cheek.

"I'd better go make sure we have everything we need then to go with it. I'll be in soon… maybe I can sit with you and Owen tonight while we watch movies."

Sean beeped me on the nose and nodded. "I'm going to hold you to that."

"I promise." I said before shooing him off to the living room while I went to set out paper plates and locate everyone's favorite drink so that we were ready for pizza and movies.

It didn't take long for everyone to settle with plates and drinks as Kota started the movie marathon with the first Iron Man movie. I was settled happily in a spot on the loveseat between Owen and Sean and the rest of them were sprawled out on the couch or the floor, wherever they'd felt the most comfortable.

"Have you seen the movies before?" Owen asked, glancing at me.

I shook my head. "No, but they've managed to somewhat catch me up to date. But the only thing I'm not clear on is that we're skipping the Hulk movie but I'm not sure why." I took a bite of my pizza.

Sean chuckled. "Ah yes. Well, that would actually be Kota's decision. He decided that since it's a different actor in the Avenger's movies that we can skip a couple hours in the interest of a watchable marathon with continuity between the main character actors." He took a bite of his own pizza. "I think he'll still play the end credit scenes."

"oh." I said, giving a slight nod. "I guess that makes sense." I said as there was a soft 'shh' from the corner where Gabriel was and I rolled my eyes and kept quiet as we watched the movie.

It was actually really cool to be between the two of them while we were watching movies as we changed from one to the other. If I had questions, I just had to look at Owen and he'd lean in to whisper the answers in my ear.

Before I even asked the questions.

He just knew what was running through my mind. I love him so much for being that instinctive. We managed to get through enough movies, to watch Avengers before it was called to be bedtime and I stood up to go get ready for bed. Everyone was staying over, including Owen and Sean, for the entire weekend.

"Darling…" Owen stood with me and reached for my hand. "We actually have a surprise for you."

"A surprise?" I asked, glancing around at how all nine of them were standing and smiling at me.

"Yeah, Peanut." Nathan said with a grin at me. "We decided that it was time for you to have a space here when you want it." I looked at him in confusion. "I totally enjoy sharing a bed with you and you're always welcome to stay in there with me." He ran a hand over the back of his head.

"But we were thinking that it wasn't fair for you to not have a space of your own anymore. At your old house you had a room and the attic space." Kota said.

"And now you just bounce around to whatever house you want to go to. You have clothes at all of our places, Princess." Victor said.

"But we know sometimes you might want girl time, away from us. And you deserve a place to stash your own candy." Luke's eyes twinkled at me before North slapped him upside the back of the head.

"Sang baby, we just wanted to give you a bit more privacy." North said.

Owen slid his hand into mine, shifting our palms so that they matched. "To allow you the choice to sleep with whomever you wanted to have in bed with you." He said.

Sean took my other hand. "But only of course if you want to." He said.

I looked around at them. "Well, then, I guess I'm not sure when you managed to pull anything off but sounds like it's a surprise worth seeing."

Silas chuckled. "You'll like it, Aggele Mou." He reassured me as we all started to make our way towards what had formerly been Nathan's dad's bedroom.

"You're sure this is a good idea?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder to meet Nathan's eyes.

He smiled. "It's a great idea. I promise, you'll love it."

"Yeah, trouble." Gabriel nodded. "it's a great spot for you to call your own." He came forward and blindfolded me with a tie.

"All right." I said, feeling myself tugged forward as Sean and Owen walked me into the room and I felt the rest of them crowd around me.

"All right… 3, 2, 1…" Gabriel counted down and took off the blindfold, allowing me to see the room for myself.

I blinked. "Oh my." I murmured, eyes wide as I took in the soft pink on the walls and the lights that had been strung along the top of the walls. They were icicle twinkle lights and they gave off a romantic glow to the room as I moved forward, dropping Owen and Sean's hands as I explored. I recognized my bookshelf from my room and I glanced at North. "You went and got it?"

"Of course, Sang baby." He said. "We got the little armoire too and I made the shelves." He nodded towards the wall where a bunch of shelves were attached to the wall and held a bunch of picture frames. I went over to look, finding they were framed pictures of all of us.

"I love it." I said.

"Hang on." Luke said before he turned off the lights and my eyes were drawn to the ceiling where my stars were again scattered all over the ceiling.

"Perfect. Thank you." I breathed, reaching up to wipe my eyes because I'd started to tear up over their sweetness. Luke turned the lights on again.

"Walk in closet." Gabriel said, waving a hand at the closet. "And it's all arranged so don't be messing it up." He said.

"I won't, Meanie."

"And of course, your own bathroom." Silas said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "We put a Jacuzzi tub in like the one at Mr. Blackbourne's." He said as he let go of me so that I could walk in and see it. It was rather elegantly done, all stone and grays with hot pink accents.

"Oh, I love this." I said. "I love all of it, thank you so much." I went around and hugged them all, kissing them as well as I said my thank you's.

"So you'll be comfortable in here?" Owen asked.

"Very much so." I said.

"All right, Pookie. Then we'll let you get ready for bed." Sean said.

I studied them. "So… are you drawing straws?" I asked.

They all blinked at me.

"To see who's sleeping in here with me?" I asked.

"Oh!" Nathan shook his head. "No, we decided, if it's all right with you, that Mr. B and Doc will stay with you this weekend. The rest of us will sleep in my room or the living room."

"Or you can sleep in here too." I said. "It doesn't matter to me but yes, it would be nice to share the bed with Owen and Sean."

They both smiled at me. "sounds like a plan, Pookie. We'll be in then about 15 minutes or so." Sean said as they all filed out of my room.

"Okay." I said, turning around slowly to study the room again. I wasn't sure I'd ever get used to having a room this great to myself.


	52. Chapter 49

I pulled open a drawer to find pajamas. I ran my hand over the contents, a soft smile playing on my lips. That Meanie. I chuckled softly. I might have to rethink his nickname because what I saw in the drawer certainly was not a mean thing to do to me.

It was full of shirts and things from the boys.

Things that I'd borrowed before or they'd given me to wear. Nathan's shirt was here as was the blue button down shirt from Luke. One of Silas' Red Sox shirts was resting on top of one of North's black shirts. The gray cashmere sweater that Owen had given me when I moved back into my house after camp in January. A scrub top that Sean had given me after I visited him at the hospital months ago. Gabriel's tank top… Victor's white shirt…. Kota's pajama pants that he'd loaned me once upon a time. My hands dug in, delighting in the colors and fabrics as I searched through it before I found what I hoped was here. Owen had donated the button down shirt I'd slept in at his house the first night to the cause and I smiled, pulling it out and setting it on top of the dresser until I found a camisole and pair of underwear to sleep in underneath it.

I went in to the bathroom and braided my hair before washing my face and brushing my teeth. I dressed in my chosen night clothes and headed back out to my room. My amazing, beautiful pink room. I crawled into bed, propped up on pillows as I stretched out, realizing that this bed was very much like the king sized bed that Owen had in his own room. I smiled, fluffing up pillows and leaning back on them to see the faint glow of the stars on the ceiling as the icicle lights twinkled along the walls.

I could stay in this room forever.

Surely we could homeschool and I could just stay in bed from here on out. I could take over surveillance on any missions they went on and just monitor things from here.

My head jerked upright at a knock on the door. "Come in." I called out.

"Pookie…" Sean grinned at me.

"Such a treat. Are you sure you don't want to crawl in at 3 am?" I teased.

Owen chuckled as he followed Sean in. "Trust me when I say he isn't welcome to do that tonight."

I smiled. "Sound all right to me, either way." I said.

Sean went around to the other side of the bed and got in with me as Owen slipped into the bed as well. "Well isn't this just cozy. Good call, Owen. King sized is the way to go." He said, stretching out and fluffing the pillow that was there for his use."

I laughed softly. "So I have you to thank for making sure I will always have company if I choose to sleep in this bed." I looked at him. "I have to admit, it's really nice though. Lots of space."

Owen's lips quirked up in a slight smile. "Selfish reasons of course. I wanted to be comfortable if I joined you." He said. "I can only guarantee that usually at my place." He took his glasses off and set them on the table, laying his phone down as well, next to mine on the charging pad. He reached to turn off the light before glancing at me. "Oh… I forgot. Clap your hands, darling."

I frowned at him but did it. My eyes widened when the icicle lights turned off. "oh wow."

"And clap twice." Sean said, propping himself up on an elbow to look at me. I smiled and did it, which turned off all the other lights in the room. "So, clap once to control the icicles and twice to control the rest." He said before clapping once himself and turning the icicles back on.

"So if I have a long pause between claps it would turn those on and off and do nothing to the other lights." I mused. Owen nodded. "And if I clapped three times in a row?" He shrugged, so I did it. "Good to know. Nothing happens." I smiled before clapping once again to turn them off. "I like to see my stars." I said softly.

"It's a good room." Owen said softly, shifting onto his back so he could see the stars too as I turned slightly and wrapped my arm around his waist, his arm wrapping around my shoulders as I rested my head on his chest.

I yawned as Sean curled up behind me, spooning up with me and his arms went around my waist. "Get some rest, Pookie. We've got a long day of movies tomorrow." He said, stifling his own yawn.

"Yes." I murmured, sighing softly as I felt him kiss the top of my head, followed by Owen kissing my forehead. "I like those movies." I said. "I can't wait to watch the rest of them."

"I had a feeling you'd like them." Sean said sleepily.

"It would be a lot of work being all of their girlfriends to all of you if you were to all choose one to dress like." I mumbled. "So I will just have to be Natasha Romanoff and hold my own."

"Well, you can flip North over your head, darling. That's a very good Black Widow move." Owen chuckled.

"I thought you'd make a good Captain America." I mumbled. "But I think I would like you best as Agent Coulson." I yawned and rubbed my face against the t-shirt he was wearing.

"Why's that?" he asked in a confused tone.

Sean laughed behind me. "Because of the suits." He chortled. "She's totally right. You'd be the best at being Coulson."

"If that's what you'd want." He said, reaching over with his free hand to tilt my chin up slightly so he could angle his head down and kiss me gently.

"It's what I want." I said breathlessly after the kiss. "I'll figure it all out tomorrow." I yawned and he let me settle back on his chest again. "Good night, Owen."

"Yes, good night Owen." Sean said.

I could almost hear him roll his eyes. "Good night Sean, be a good boy and fall asleep, okay?"

He snorted. "Yes, Pookie. I will. Good night."

Owen laughed, probably from catching the look on Sean's face but tiredness swiftly settled on me and I fell asleep.

I woke up in the morning, still tangled up between them. It was just as comfortable as it had been a couple months ago in Owen's bed. I shifted slightly, assessing how asleep they were and how great my need to get out of bed was.

"Good morning, darling." Owen murmured, shifting enough to loosen his grip on me before pressing a kiss to my forehead.

"mmm, morning." I smiled, raising my head to look at him. He was looking at something on his phone. "Did you sleep well?"

"I did, did you?" His lips quirked up in a slight smile as he looked away from his phone and looked down at me.

"I did. I think I'm going to like having my own room again."

"Good." He murmured, tilting his head down to meet mine as he slanted his lips over mine and kissed me. He smiled at me when he pulled back. "Let me know when I can come over and spend the night."

I smiled back. "Whenever you want to, works for me. We spent far too much time avoiding the situation last year." I said.

He nodded slightly. "Thank goodness we won't have to deal with that anymore." He said, stretching and reaching for his glasses.

"What does happen with that?" I asked, propping myself up on one arm. "I don't have to go to school anymore but I would be a junior so … I've never fully understood that."

"We'll make sure that you get the schooling that you want." He said. "But we can discuss it all the way to Florida or when we get back, okay? He ran his hand down my back, rubbing it gently.

"Okay." I smiled. "you're right, there's plenty of time before anything has to be decided." I stretched out as best I could, Sean was still hugging me around the waist. I caught Owen looking over my head and felt Sean's grip ease away from my waist. I glanced over my shoulder. "Good morning."

"Morning, Pookie." Sean stretched and yawned again.

Owen tugged on me gently, turning my attention and face back towards him as he cupped my cheek with one hand, fingers edging into my hair and tangling with the strands by my ear as he drew me closer. His lips slanted over mine and he kissed me deeply until I moaned softly against his lips and kissed him back as I shifted even more until I was basically sitting on top of him and kissing him. He was pressing back against the pillows, when I pulled away and met his eyes. I studied them for a long moment before glancing back over at Sean.

Sean was awake more now and had propped himself up on his side, watching us. "What? Don't mind me." He grinned at me.

Owen huffed a sigh and rolled his eyes before his arm circled my waist and he shifted me to the other side. "You don't just get to lay there and watch." He said.

"Do I get to join in?" Sean teased.

Owen narrowed his eyes at him and glared at him. "Did we look like we were inviting you?"

"Didn't think you'd gotten around to it yet. I was just waiting."

I couldn't help it. I giggled. Sean's eyes shot wide open and he sat up in bed, staring at me as I giggled. "Stop." I said, holding out a hand to him. "Don't rile him up this early." I giggled again.

"Yes, Dr. Green, don't rile me up this early. I could give hours and then they'll all want to know what you did." Owen said.

"Pish posh." Sean shook his head. "You wouldn't. They don't deserve it. But if Pookie doesn't stop giggling, I will leap over you to kiss those giggles away."

I sobered and pushed a finger into my lips to keep from giggling. I closed my eyes and counted to ten before opening them again. "Okay look." I smiled at both of them. "I think I'm still a bit… not to the point where I'm ready to kiss both of you at the same time. It might get a little out of hand and since I wouldn't know what I was doing, I don't know that I'd let myself tell you to stop." I said, blushing as both of them gave me calculating looks. "Oh, please don't look at me like that." I begged. "That's worse than when I pout." I glared.

They exchanged a glance. "Maybe." Sean shrugged. "But we'll respect your wishes, Pookie." He said.

"Yes," Owen nodded. "We didn't mean to make you uncomfortable with the conversation. Like we've always said, it's up to you to tell us when you're ready to try anything new." He said, rubbing my back gently as I shifted over him again to settle between them, sitting up against the headboard as they basically lounged on the pillows next to me.

"Okay." I said, smiling down at them. "I'll let you know, of course."

"Of course." Owen smirked.

"So, more movies today?" I asked.

"Yes, Iron Man 3… Thor 2, Captain America 2…" Sean was counting off the movies as he named them. "In no particular order of course. Kota's probably hoping to get to Age of Ultron before we stop for the day."

"Well and we can take breaks to pack more or make a good lunch." I mused. "A couple hours to run over to the hospital to see Meg and Angel."

"Of course." Owen nodded. "That is a must do today so even if we have breakfast and then go to the hospital, movies can wait until you're back from the hospital." He said.

"Okay." I nodded. "I think that's a great plan. I should probably get up, it's only fair after getting this great room that I make breakfast."

"As long as North isn't already in there." Sean teased.

"True! I won't get to add chocolate chips if he's making the pancakes." I said, shifting to crawl out of bed over him.

He snagged my hand. "Just a toll for you to be allowed out of bed." He said.

"oh dear. A toll?" I teased.

"Just a kiss, Pookie. Just a kiss." Sean said, pursing his lips.

I smiled down at him and lowered my head to meet his, giving him a quick peck on the lips. "I'll give you a better kiss later if you let go. I really, really want to make breakfast." I pouted at him.

"Fine, fine…" He let go and waved me off as Owen chuckled. "Go! Make breakfast, Pookie."

"Thank you." I grinned before getting off the bed and running to the closet to grab some clothes. I flashed both of them a bigger smile, blew a kiss at each of them before disappearing into the bathroom to get dressed.

Sean glanced at Owen. "We got lucky." He said softly.

"The luckiest ever." Owen confirmed with a slight nod before picking up his phone again.


	53. Chapter 50

After pancakes, we cleaned up and I changed my clothes to be more casual but appropriate to go to the hospital and visit Meg and Angel.

It was amazing to actually get to talk to her and meet her husband. They're really nice people. I was so touched when she told me they were keeping Angel's name. I tried to tell them that they didn't have to but she insisted. They did also ask if I'd consider being one of Angel's godmothers. I cried when I said yes.

It's a good thing North wasn't around. He always wants to try and kick the guys butts when they make me cry.

I don't want to think about trying to tell him when I make myself cry over something. I just might have to flip him over my head to keep him from kicking my butt.

After I had a good chance to love on and hug the baby, I said good bye to them and made sure they had my number so that we could talk after they left the hospital. I went up to Sean's office and knocked on the door.

"Pookie." He grinned at me and pulled me into the office. "Fancy meeting you here."

"you brought me." I pointed out, looking up at him with an innocent expression.

"I guess I did." He smiled and backed me up into the door, his hand over my head, keeping me between him and the door. "Whatever am I going to do with you?"

"Hmm. Bring me to the office more often?"

"Excellent idea." He said before lowering his head to meet mine and brushing his lips across mine.

"Dr. Green." I pushed back on his chest slightly.

"Pookie?"

"I haven't giggled." I informed him primly before ducking beneath his arm and moving over to the chair next to his desk.

He ran his hand over his head and stared at me for a long moment before he smiled. "Hmm, I'm not sure how I overlooked the lack of giggling. My apologies, Pookie." He said, coming over to sit behind his desk again.

"Almost ready to go?" I asked.

"Just a bit more paperwork and then yes." He nodded.

"okay." I said, pulling out my phone. "Then home for lunch and more movies, right?"

"That's the plan." He said, pulling the files on his desk closer. "I should really get started on my work."

I laughed softly. "No one is keeping you from finishing but you." I pointed out.

"A very good point, Pookie. I'll reward you for the thought later." He picked up his pen and started to work on the files.

I lost track of time as I looked through my phone, smiling at photos that we'd been taking this summer. At some point, apparently, I dozed off and I didn't wake up until Sean shook me gently. "Done?" I asked, eyes still heavy with sleep.

"Yes, Pookie." He beamed at me. "All done and filed and ready to go on vacation for the next three weeks."

"Three? We're only gone for two?"

"I took the third one off. I deserve extra time with my family." He said, calmly.

"Hmm, I think I really like the sound of that. You don't take enough time off." I sat up and leaned forward to kiss him lightly. "Now, home to finish up that movie marathon." I smiled.

"Yes." He nodded. "We're coming up on some of the favored movies in the series." He helped me off the couch and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "I was thinking pie would be nice tonight though. I'll stop at the store on the way home so we can get enough apples."

"Pie for everyone?" I asked. He nodded. "That's going to be awesome." I said, stretching up to kiss him again. "We can definitely do apple. We'll get some ice cream too. It's been so hot lately that will taste really good with the pie."

We stopped at the store and he kept me laughing while he juggled apples and made jokes about what we were picking up. We also got some take and bake pizzas, figuring that we would save the cost of delivery by baking them ourselves plus North could deck one out with all the veggies he wanted to because we had some at the house that needed to be used before we went on vacation.

I ended up closing off the kitchen because the boys were trying to come in and distract Sean away from focusing on making the pies and I wanted him to be able to impress them with perfect apple pies. I was watching for a while, having helped him by peeling all the apples before he kicked me out of the kitchen as well.

It was fine with me, because Owen was in the dining room, drinking coffee and looking over something on his phone before I sat myself down in his lap and distracted him. Or was I just distracting myself? Either way, I got him to stop looking at his phone because he was too busy kissing me.

Once Sean's pies were done, we got the pizza in the oven and settled around the living room with snacks and drinks to watch our first movie of the day. I couldn't have been happier. I had the life I'd dreamed of. Nine beautiful, protective men who loved me and I loved them.

And we were watching Marvel Superhero movies and tomorrow we were leaving for two weeks in Florida. I laced my fingers through Sean's as we watched the movie and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "Good pie, Dr. Sean."

"Thank you, Nurse Pookie." He smiled and turned his head to kiss me. I raised my free hand to rest it on his cheek as I kissed him back.

I snuggled into him and he slid his arm around me as we watched Chris Evans as Captain America take on robots. I rested my head on his shoulder. "Tell me again how you've gotten the van seating arrangements settled?"

"Later." He murmured. "You'll miss the best part of the movie."

I poked my lower lip out at him and he rolled his eyes at me. "Go see Gabriel if you're going to pout. He'll swear at you a bit to make it go away."

I laughed softly. "True. Or he'd poke it in with his finger."

"SHHH."

"Sorry Kota." I called out softly before clamping my hand over my mouth again when Sean poked me in the side, trying to make me laugh again. "Stop." I wrinkled my nose at him and settled in again, feeling him brush his lips across my forehead as we got back into the movie.

We took a bit of a break once the movie ended, the guys all stretching and going to see what else there was to eat.

"Okay, seriously, tell me the seating arrangements again?" I shifted, sitting up so that I could look at Sean and Owen behind him in the chair next to the sofa.

"Well, Erica thinks you're still just dating Kota so we've got it settled that you won't be in a van with her." He said, naming who would be in the seats. "We'll see each other often enough that you'll talk to her."

I frowned. "Yeah, but I was thinking, that doesn't seem very girlfriend like of me if I'm never in a van with my "boyfriend"." I said, using air quotes around the word. I'd be with all nine of my boyfriends but it seemed odd that I'd never be in the same van as Kota. "She'll be suspicious."

Owen's brow furrowed slightly. "I can see that. Erica's not usually suspicious but she's not dumb, she will catch on."

"And… I never told you all but Jessica figured it all out before Kota did. She's been keeping our secret since Christmas." I admitted. "I really don't want to put her through all the pressure of keeping secrets from her mom while we are all on vacation."

Owen's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. "No kidding." He said, running a hand over his hair. "You know, I should have figured. She's always been such a bright girl."

"Who knows my men as well as her mom does." I said softly.

Sean pursed his lips. "So you think Erica probably knows and is just waiting for someone to admit it." He mused.

"Quite possibly." I nodded.

"So what are you thinking, Darling?" Owen asked softly.

"I'd like to go talk to her. Alone." I said. "I think this has gone on long enough and it's time that we actually tell the people that matter. I want to tell Uncle too but not now if it's going to make him mad that we're dropping the bomb and then escaping for two weeks."

"He probably already knows. He's not dumb either." Owen said. I shrugged but smiled. "Okay so I'm sure Erica's home now, so why don't we just double check and you can go talk to her. Then we'll work on drawing straws for the seating in the vans." He smiled at me.

"Perfect." I said, standing up and bending first to kiss Sean lightly before I went over and dropped a kiss on Owen's lips. "thank you for understanding."

"Of course." They chorused as I left the room and went to find Kota to tell him what I was planning.


	54. Chapter 51

"You're sure?" Kota looked at me for a long moment.

"Are you worried?" I asked.

He shrugged slightly. "Not really. She's always been the one we could all count on to not get out of control mad at us."

I smiled and leaned into him. "She has always seemed to be really great to me. Trusting." I murmured.

His hand rubbed my shoulder lightly as he tucked me a little closer. "She is." He agreed. "So…" He quirked an eyebrow at me. "Jessica?"

"Has known since we watched Frozen on Christmas day if not sooner." I said, blushing. "At least enough that I liked all of you and all of you like me. We had the required, if you hurt me, she'll hurt you and if I hurt any of you then she's got your backs." I nodded. "She's great. I truly like your sister."

He grinned. "Good. I really want the two of you to get along."

"No worries there." I said, leaning up to kiss his cheek as we headed out, walking from Nathan's house to his house.

"Do you want me to stay?" he asked as we went into the garage. "I can if you want."

"No, it's okay. You should take Jessica to go get road trip snacks and goodies. We've probably got a few things for her that she likes but she deserves to have her own stash, okay?" I smiled at him.

"She'll appreciate that." He said, opening the door for me. "Hey mom." He went first and went over to kiss Erica's cheek.

"Kota!" She beamed. "I wasn't thinking I'd see you today."

He shrugged. "Tomorrow's leaving day but Sang wanted to come over and talk to you. And Jessica needs a chance to get her own stash bag for the road."

"Good idea." Erica smiled. "I have treat bags for all of you as well but you're right, she needs her own if you all have one."

I smiled. "As she should." I said softly. Kota excused himself to go get Jessica and take her to the store.

"Sang. It's so good to see you, sweetie." Erica said and I went over to her, mentally going over what my therapist had said and openly, walking into the hug she offered to me. I stiffened for just a moment before relaxing. She hugged me tight and kissed my cheek. "Ice tea?" she offered.

"Sounds good." I said, smiling and pleased that I didn't have a panic attack.

She fixed ice tea for both of us, with ice, a bit of sweetener and a lemon wedge before coming to sit with me at the table. "Oops, gotta get the cookies." She smiled before retrieving some lemon cookies and setting them between us. "You wanted to talk?" she asked as the back door banged with Kota and Jessica leaving.

"I did." I said, taking a sip of my tea and a nibble of my cookie before I rubbed my hands down on my shorts and looked up at her. "I didn't feel good about going on a vacation without letting you know what has been happening with us. The boys and me."

She tilted her head and watched me, eating her cookie. "You mean the fact that you like all of them and they all like you?" she asked, casually.

My eyes widened and I jerked my head up, meeting her eyes. "You know?"

"Are all of you dating?" she countered.

My cheeks flushed with a tinge of pink. "Yes." I said softly, not removing my gaze from hers.

"Then yes, I know." She said before moving closer to me and framing my face with her hands. "Be honest with me, Sang…" She said softly. "You're not sleeping with them, as in being intimate, are you?"

I blinked at her. "I sleep with them to sleep but no, we're not intimate." I managed to get out.

She pressed a kiss to my forehead. "good." She murmured before releasing my face and sitting back in her chair. "If that ever changes, don't get me wrong, I know that Owen and Sean will be more than capable of taking care of what you need. But. If you don't feel comfortable talking to or taking care of your protection with them, then I will help you. I will always be on your side when it comes to this, Sang." She said.

"But why?"

She gave me a sheepish look. "I love you and all those boys as dearly as I love Dakota and Jessica. To me you are all my children. And I am far too young to be a grandma quite yet." She smiled.

"oh." I toyed with my cookie for a moment. "None of this bothers you?" I blurted out.

She studied me again before drinking some ice tea. "You know, it doesn't." she said honestly. "I've known Luke, Victor, Gabriel and Nathan since they were little. Kota's always considered them his best friends and pretty much family." She explained. "Kota's Santa wish when he was 3 years old was that Luke would have a good Christmas. Luke was the only one that didn't really have anyone. Ben was working a lot, trying to prove that he could make a good home for his nephew. He loves him dearly, always has but working a lot meant Luke was a pretty lonely 3 year old." She said.

"Oh, I'd like to know more about the boys as toddlers. They were probably pretty cute." I smiled.

"Adorable. Not kidding. Luke was a flat out kick in the pants, all the time." She chuckled. "I'm probably going to become their worst nightmare now that it's out in the open. I can truly tell you all their little secrets and properly embarrass them like their mom's would."

"Oh, we definitely need to be together every once in a while then on the van ride to Florida." I grinned.

She smiled. "I also figured out that you don't live at home anymore." She said softly. "I'm sure they're taking good care of you. And it has to be better than over there."

I toyed with my glass for a while. "I'm pretty certain it is too." I said before telling her of the series of events that led up to me leaving the house for good.

"I'll keep more of an eye out then. I just get the feeling your sister isn't that happy over there either."

"I'd appreciate that. We parted ways around Christmas more permanently and she doesn't want anything to do with me. But I do miss my sister every once in a while, which is why I like spending time with Jessica."

"Jessica likes you too. And she's always gotten along with all the boys."

"She told me that Owen used to babysit." I smiled. "I bet that was pretty cute too."

"It was. He has always been a very sweet man." Erica said as she looked me over again. "Back to your question of if it bothers me…." She hesitated. I looked up at her. "It would bother me more if you were actually able to choose just one. I fear what it would do to them if you did. They have always been like brothers, even before they went into the Academy. There isn't anything that any of them wouldn't do for the others. None of them would be able to choose between happiness with you and the happiness they feel with their brothers. It would destroy all of them."

I nodded. I knew this. It was part of what had made it so hard to commit to the plan in the first place.

"So as long as all of you are happy and happy and in love with each other then, no, it doesn't bother me at all because it's what works for you. For all of you." She said, reaching out and resting a hand on my arm. "You're part of my family, Sang, just like they are. And I love you just as much as I love them all."

I was having a hard time holding it together by now. I'd never felt such an open rush of love from anyone in a Mom spot. Well, maybe Lily and Mrs. Rose but those weren't as close of a relationship as the one with Erica could be. I sniffled and managed a 'thank you' before I burst into tears.

"Oh, Sang." Erica murmured, moving and pulling me impulsively into her arms and a comforting hug as I cried into her shoulder, no reaction to the hug this time at all. She held me, rubbing my back gently as I cried. She kissed the top of my head when I stopped crying and let me compose myself before she backed away. "Anytime you need to do that, I'm here."

"Thank you." I wiped my eyes on the tissue she offered me. "The love I feel from them and what you just showed me is so overwhelming to me. I never knew anything like this until now." I explained.

"Someday we will talk about that. It doesn't have to be today." She said softly.

"Thank you." I said again. "I was wondering if you and Jessica want to come over to Nathan's for dinner and a couple movies tonight?"

"I think that would be a great way to spend the evening." She said. "I actually have a lasagna made, did you have the meal planned out?"

"We had pizza for lunch but hadn't talked much about dinner yet. I'm sure that will be great." I smiled.

"I have garlic bread and salad too." She admitted. "I was hoping we could manage a family dinner tonight so clearly, I've got enough of everything to feed an army."

I laughed. "We have some pie left, I think and ice cream."

"Apple, of course?"

"Yes."

"Easiest way to get Sean to tell me anything." She said.

"oops, I taught him how to make his own."

"Even better." She laughed and got up to refill our tea.

We were talking and laughing as she filled me in on the antics of a 4 year old Luke and the others when Kota and Jessica got home from the store.


	55. Chapter 52

Kota eyed me as he walked into the kitchen. "What's she telling you?" He asked warily.

I shrugged and smiled. "It might be things about most of my boys at the age of 4…" I said innocently. "It might be about all of my boys at the ages of 12 and 15. A girl has the right to know these things."

"Absolutely." Jessica grinned at me. "I have stories too."

I smiled. "I bet you do. You'd have the stories that your mom might not know about."

Jessica giggled and Erica rolled her eyes. "Sure, there's probably some things." She admitted, getting up to pull the casserole dishes out of the oven. "But we'll save the one about how they almost burned the house down for another time. Like during the first hour of the drive tomorrow." She promised me.

"Oh good! That just means I have to be in the same van as you so that you can tell me stories." I said as I got up to pull things out of the fridge. I gave Kota a huge grin. "Your mom and Jessica are coming to dinner so we can draw numbers for seat positions during the trip. Can you run over to Nathans and prep the numbers and stuff?"

He blinked at me. "Draw numbers?" he asked.

"Of course." I nodded. "Those that will drive are not in the drawing but assigned Driver's seat and Shotgun. Then the rest of us will draw for position in the vans. We have a good 8 hour drive so maybe we should do 2 hour stints. That means drawing 4 different times in the hopes that we aren't always in the same van with each other."

Erica chuckled and tousled his hair. "Get moving, Dakota before Sang gets home and tells you exactly how it's going to be."

He ran his hand over his hair and nodded before kissing his mom on the cheek and heading down to Nathan's.

"Did you get everything you wanted?" I asked Jessica.

"Oh, I'm completely stocked up. I'll share if you end up with less than desirable snacks." She promised.

"I'm not sure that's possible with Luke around." I laughed.

"No… Luke's definitely dependable for good snacks but it depends if North has the chance to intercept them." She informed me.

"Ah, yes, I can understand the concern." I said as we packed up dinner and the three of us headed out the door as well.

It certainly didn't take long to make it across the street to Nathan's. "Oh, I have to show you my room." I beamed as I told Jessica and Erica. "The boys made me an amazing space to call mine here."

"Cool." Jessica said as we walked into the kitchen and Erica slid the lasagna into the oven with the garlic bread to keep warm and heat up while Jessica and I put what we were carrying in the fridge. "I may need to come have sleepovers with you if it's that cool." She teased.

"You know you can anytime you want." I told her sincerely.

Erica eyed us for a moment, her eyes softening slightly as she studied us. "I think that would be a fine idea." She said softly. "Just make sure I'm in the loop." She requested softly before she was swept up in an exuberant hug.

"Mama Lee's here!" Luke said excitedly, almost lifting her off the ground.

"Monkey!" Erica laughed and tousled his hair as he set her down. "No bananas tonight." She teased.

"But you still made dinner so that's okay." He said, kissing her cheek before giving Jessica a hug and coming over to drop a kiss on the tip of my nose before freezing and sliding his gaze at Erica.

"I know all about it." She reassured him. "Unlike some people that I've known since birth, Sang cared enough to come talk to me before we go on vacation together."

He colored pink. "Sorry, Mama Lee." He said. "Do I still get mama hugs?"

"Of course, sweetie." She said softly, her eyes touched with just a hint of sadness and I made a note to myself to ask about things sometime over the next two weeks when it was just us girls. "You will always be my monkey boy and I will always be happy to supply the mama hugs. You know that." She said before coming over to cup his cheek for a moment. She gave it a light slap. "Now, do me a favor, watch the oven stuff so it doesn't burn the house down, okay?"

He grinned at her and gave her another hug. "Okay."

I wrapped my arm around Jessica's shoulders. "Great. Now I have to show off my amazing room." I said before leading the two of them out of the kitchen and down the hall to my master suite. "Check it out." I said, letting them in and clapping to turn on the lights. I watched as both Jessica and Erica stared around the room with rapt attention, taking in all the special things my boys had put in the room for me.

"Wow." Jessica's eyes widened. "Can they come do my room?" She asked, turning in a circle to take it all in as she stared at it with her jaw open in a wide mouthed stare.

"I'm sure they'd be happy too. You can sleep over with me until they're done." I smiled.

"I almost want to let them loose in the whole house." Erica admitted.

"You can stay too." I grinned at her.

Jessica wandered over to take note of my closet.

"and we're about the same size now." I told her. "So my closet is yours if you want. I only ask that you ask first so that I have a chance to check to make sure Gabriel isn't planning on me needing to wear the clothes that week."

"Awesome." She breathed, running a hand down one of my skirts before turning to face me. "So everyone knows about all of you now, right?"

"Almost." I said. "I don't think North and Luke have told Uncle yet."

"He knows." Erica blurted. "He's not a dumb dog."

My eyes widened slightly at her description and I gave her a look.

She shrugged. "We've been friends a very long time, Ben and I." she said, softly. "We've gotten through quite a few things together, not the least including how to change a diaper as I had to show him the first time when he first was on his own with Luke in hand."

"Ah. I suppose that makes a lot of sense then when it comes to how he's been the past 5 months or so about seeing me with Luke or North and not saying much about me needing to be with Luke more often." I said.

She chuckled. "Yes, that was probably a direct result." She said before they went and checked out my private bathroom. "They do amazing work." She said.

I agreed. "Yes, they are all amazing."

Owen popped his head in. "Luke said the garlic bread is warm now." He smiled at us. "Ready to eat and get on with the planning and the rest of the movies?" he asked.

"Sounds great." Erica smiled at him, pausing on her way out of the room to kiss his cheek. "Always such a nice boy." She teased, patting him on the opposite cheek as he blushed furiously at the attention.

Jessica followed her, hugging him tight around the waist. "Which movies?" she asked.

He named the remaining Marvel movies we had left to watch.

"Great! I love Hawkeye." She enthused.

"Not Black Widow?" I asked. "Or Captain America?"

She shook her head as Owen hugged her back and dropped a kiss on the top of her hair. "They don't use a bow." She informed me. "But they are my next in line after Clint." She said before letting go of Owen and heading into the dining room.

"Hmm." I smiled at him before clapping to turn off my lights.

"Is it really any surprise? Her favorite books are Hunger games and her favorite Disney princess is actually Merida." He reminded me, tapping me on the forehead gently.

"No." I shrugged. "Can't believe I forgot." I grinned at him before stretching up to kiss him gently. "I'm starving… good thing it's time for dinner, my love."

"Good thing indeed that Erica makes enough food." He chuckled and wrapped his arm around my shoulders as we went to join the others at the table.


	56. Chapter 53

It was nice, having dinner all together with everyone on the same page of knowing how I was with all my boys. I think talking to Erica took a lot of the tension away because she teased 'her cubs' quite a lot about thinking they were needing to hide something from her.

I explained my idea about seating in the vans for our drive tomorrow and they agreed it was a good idea. Kota took a few moments to arrange for the numbers to draw. He labeled the tags as 1 or 2 for the vans and then they were labelled with 3-6 to assign spots in the vans.

It was actually pretty funny to watch them play rock paper scissors to determine drivers. Because Erica wanted in on driving as well, it's not that she minded the boys driving but she reminded them that when we arrived in Florida it would be better to have drivers over 18 in the driver seats just because their laws could be different and she didn't want anyone to get into any trouble in rental vans.

So, we were set up with North and Victor driving first with Owen and Erica in the passenger seats and then then they'd switch off at Florida. I was switching vans when we switched drivers and I forgot who else was but it made vacation seem so much more real than it had been earlier today.

We watched the other movies on our list and it was late when Kota and Owen walked Erica and Jessica home again.

Owen and Sean had bid us good night when Owen and Kota came back, each taking a few moments to kiss me before they headed to their respective houses.

I stifled a yawn and went to get ready for bed in my bathroom, spending more time looking at my space in awe. It was honestly the most amazing thing they'd ever done for me outside of fixing up the attic space at my old house.

I could hear the hushed argument outside my door as I crawled into bed. "Do I need to come out there?" I called.

"No, Princess."

"We're just trying to decide if anyone is spending the night in your room with you, Sang baby."

"Why don't you ask me?" I could almost see 7 hands running awkwardly over the back of 7 heads as they tried to figure out why they'd been so silly in not asking me if I had a preference.

"Oi, Trouble. Stop making so much fuckin' sense at midnight."

"Sorry that I have to be the logical one." I laughed. "Is that you asking me?" I clapped my hands over my mouth to keep the giggles in. There was more grumbling outside the door. "Because even if it isn't… I would be happy if any of you came to join me but especially if it was Silas and North. Just don't be disappointed if I'm asleep when you finally make it in here." I snuggled into my pillows. "So… whenever you decide that you're ready to join me. And my bathroom is free in case one of you wants to use it." I clapped my hands once, turning on the lights around the ceiling.

Surprisingly, I didn't have to wait long. "Aggele Mou." Silas' accent seemed thicker in the dim light of the room as he got into bed with me.

I smiled, turning to face him. "Nice of you to join me." I said. "Is North still beating them down outside the door?"

He chuckled. "No, but I was smart enough to have gotten ready for bed earlier. He just snuck into your bathroom."

I turned my head and caught the door closing as the light came on. "Well, aren't you the smart one." I said, turning back to face him and reached out a hand to rest it on his chest.

He laughed and grinned at me, his teeth shining in the dark. "I guess I am." He leaned forward and captured my lips with his in a light kiss.

I kissed him back, my mouth moving to counter his until he pulled away and looked at me. "Okay?"

He smiled again. "Okay, Aggele Mou. Say, what kind of pen does a Bull use?"

I frowned slightly. "I don't know."

"A bull pen." He laughed. "Get it. Bull pen. Like he's a …"

"Warm up pitcher going in to the baseball game late." I smiled up at him. "that is a funny one."

"Thanks." He beamed.

"I'm so excited that we're going to go to a Red Sox game in Florida." I said.

"Me too." He agreed as North came out of the bathroom and came to join us in the bed.

I felt the bed dip behind me and Silas let go of me so that I could roll over and look at North as he moved in closer behind me. "Northstar." I smiled.

"Sang baby." He leaned in, nuzzling his nose into the crook of my neck before he kissed me there, I felt the quick sting of a bite before his tongue smoothed it over, soothing the bite quickly. I shivered under the attention. Biting with North still turned me on the way it had the first time. "I know, I know." He mumbled, his head raising to look over me at Silas. "No marks."

Silas laughed. "Exactly. Or Gabriel will have your head for leaving marks where he can't get away with make up on her skin."

"And the others would be mad too." I said finally before raising my head and kissing North fiercely, my lips clamping down on his lower lip for a moment before I smoothed the roughened area with a flick of my tongue. "But I'm sure that Meanie didn't say anything about me biting you."

North groaned and Silas chuckled again. "Sang, Baby…" He started but finally shook his head.

"Should I go ask him?" I asked innocently. "I'm sure he'd answer me."

"No, it's okay." North finally said, wrapping an arm around my waist to hold me still. "We need to get some sleep."

"But I'm too excited to sleep."

"Aggele Mou, you must sleep. The sooner we sleep, the faster we get to Florida." Silas said.

"I suppose you're right." I said with a yawn. "Let me get the lights then." I raised my hands and clapped to turn them off.

They both chuckled. "Almost forgot they did that." North explained before kissing my forehead.

I felt Silas' arms wrap around my waist from behind and he kissed the back of my neck. "Sleep, Aggele Mou." He murmured.

"I'll try." I mumbled, sinking into the double embrace. I felt comfortable. This wasn't anything different for me, more than one of them in my bed. It was one of the first times it was deliberate, of course. And where we were all in bed at the same time. I mean, even with Owen and Sean, I'd invariably start in bed with one of them and the other one would join me later after we were both asleep. I stayed still, hearing both of their breathing patterns level out, telling me that they'd fallen asleep.

What I should have done is designated the two of them to sleep in my bed and let the other 5 of them bunk in here for the night. A sleepover atmosphere with all of my boys. Well, all of my boys that were actually here. I'm certain we would have done all right. I tried harder to get my brain turned off. It was currently running through what I'd packed in my suitcase, sure that I'd packed the wrong clothes for summer days at Disney World.

It was going to be so fun. I couldn't hardly wait.


	57. Chapter 54

Despite how difficult it was to fall asleep, I was surprised that I managed to stay asleep even after Silas and North had both gotten up. It wasn't until I felt the air shift and noticed a faint scent of spring soap in the air that I woke up, bolting upright and blinking as I stared wide eyed at Owen. "Did I make us late?" I blurted in a panic.

He chuckled. "Relax, darling." He said, stepping over to the bed and bending slightly to drop a light kiss on my lips. "Good morning."

I sighed against his lips for a moment before kissing him back. "Good morning." I mumbled, pulling away. I felt my cheeks flush with a faint blush of color as I looked up at him. Seriously. Perfection. My love was always the epitome of perfection and even now, no matter how early it was, on vacation, he was perfectly coiffed and groomed. "It's probably far too early for you to look so perfect." I smiled. "Lighten up, my love. We're on vacation."

"I know." He ran a hand anxiously over his hair. "I tried." He gave me a small smile.

"Well, I suppose it's okay today. I know that Gabriel plans on getting you out of your usual shell on the days we go to theme parks." I said, stretching, oblivious to the way my tank top was riding up and exposing my stomach to him. I looked up at him, finding his eyes locked on my midsection and I blushed. "Sorry." I murmured before tugging it down and shifting to crawl out of bed. I pushed at my hair, moving it away from my face. I had such a bedhead this morning.

Owen caught my hand and tugged me close before he wrapped me up in a tight hug. "No apologies needed, darling." He said, pressing his lips to my forehead in a reassuring kiss. "We're not late, you didn't oversleep and I honestly just came in to wake you up and tell you that breakfast is ready."

"It is?"

He laughed. "Of course, it is. The boys couldn't sleep. Gabriel drove Kota crazy by making him unearth bags from the packed vans because he was worried he'd forgotten something for those theme park outfits. And then Luke woke up, ready to go around 3 am so he started making pancakes. North heard the noises and has been in the kitchen for about 3 hours trying to make sure Luke doesn't go overboard with chocolate chips in the pancakes."

I laughed. "Oh, those boys of ours. Whatever are we going to do with this family?" I asked, resting my head on his chest and hugging him back for a moment. "Someone's invited Erica and Jessica to come over for breakfast, right?"

He smiled and kissed my forehead again. "Of course, Sean went over to fetch them and whatever else needed to make it into the vans." He said. "So, you've got about 20 minutes if you want them to take a bath and get ready."

"I'll hurry." I said. "I'll make someone braid my hair today instead of having it washed. Plenty of time for that when we get to where we're going today."

Owen nodded. "All right then. I'll ward Gabriel off and keep him out of your bathroom." He said.

"Thank you, my love."

"He did however say he already laid clothes out for you in the bathroom" He said when I made my way over to my dresser to grab clothes. "I think that in exchange for not washing your hair, it would be a nice gesture to go with his choice."

"It's always his choice around here." I grumbled but grinned at him. "See you soon then." I said, blowing him a kiss.

He caught it and tucked it into his pocket before I closed myself into the bathroom.

I hurried through my bath, taking advantage of not washing my hair to shave my legs and was soon getting dressed in the shorts and sleeveless top that Meanie had laid out for me. I put on just a touch of lip gloss and waved a mascara wand in the general vicinity of my eyelashes. I know he hated make up on me but sometimes I just thought my features were too pale to stand out. Like my eyebrows. I literally hated my eyebrows because they were like the blondest feature about me.

I grabbed a hair tie and my comb and headed out to the kitchen in my bare feet to get some breakfast and hope that someone wanted to braid my hair.

Gabriel was the obvious choice but Erica was well skilled at braiding as well. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly if I thought about what I'd learned about my boys, Luke was very adept at braiding as well, in spite his tendency to twist my hair into loops if he was bored in class. I chalked it up to being less obvious than actually whipping out a comb and French braiding your girlfriend's, who wasn't supposed to be your girlfriend, hair in the middle of Homeroom or English.

"Good morning, Sang." I heard variations of the phrase as I entered the kitchen and smiled, going around and greeting each one of my boys with a quick hug and kiss before greeting Erica and Jessica with a pleased smile and a quick hug.

"I see you made it for breakfast." I smiled.

"Luke does great pancakes." Erica smiled.

"I heard you trained him well." I responded.

"Ben taught me well so it's all full circle." She admitted.

"And Luke's been teaching me." Jessica piped up as she put a rather large bite of pancakes in her mouth. I smiled and slid into the chair next to hers.

"That's good. I do okay with pancakes." I shrugged as a plate materialized in front of me. Based on the healthy side of bacon and heaping spoonful of fresh fruit on the side of my chocolate chip pancakes, it was clear that this had been dished up for me by North. "Thank you, North Star." I said.

He bent and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "You're welcome, Sang baby. We can take your fruit with us in the van if you don't finish everything."

I smiled. "Thank you. I appreciate the heads up that you aren't going to freak out if I don't finish."

He barked out a laugh. "After how long it took you to fall asleep last night? I'm just happy you're willing to eat at all."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, I think."

"Do you want one of the bottled coffees or juice?"

I shook my head. "A glass of milk, please."

"Sure." He nodded and headed back into the kitchen to get me a glass.

I dug into my plate. I was hungry, to be honest, I don't know how I ever managed to think being hungry was a good thing. I certainly don't think I could handle being hungry anymore for more than a typical gap between meals. On the other hand, there were days that I couldn't seem to eat enough and I would practically eat my way through the day with something every hour.

I think those were days that Katniss Everdeen called 'hungry days' in the Hunger Games books. Days where from the moment you woke up, you knew no matter what you ate would not be enough to stave off hunger that day. I used to have those a lot. But sometimes, when I was 10 or 11, those were punishment days. Oh yes. If you thought the step monster was terrible when she made me drink lemon and vinegar mixtures, tied me up in a shower with the water on or made me sit naked in a closet all day… well. Those punishments had nothing on the ones she was giving me at first.

It wasn't uncommon for me to be held to one meal a day for up to two weeks. In the summer. She knew she couldn't pull it off during the school year because if I tried to skip lunch, someone would feed me and then call her to tell her that I was some sort of forgetful child who clearly forgot her lunch that day.

No one understood that they'd just ensured I wouldn't get dinner.

And I was going to be lucky if I could sneak down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and secure a snack. And something to eat for breakfast out of view of Marie's sneaky little snitch eyes.

Which I'd never fully realized were sneaky little snitch eyes until the day that she stole my clothes and stole my phone and told the boys I was sick and not going to school.

I was lost and caught in memories and wasn't even aware that I'd managed to down all my pancakes and bacon and was angrily stabbing my fruit with my fork as I shoved it into my mouth, barely managing to chew it before I swallowed. It was too much memory. Too much of a habit. Eat fast and hope that you can get most of your meal consumed before there was a punishment given that involved taking away your food.

I blinked at the glass of milk that was plunked down in front of me. "Wow, Sang, Baby. You really must have been hungry. I've never seen you eat so much food so quickly." North's voice was a little astounded and I felt my cheeks flush.

I hung my head in humiliation for a moment, closing my eyes and feeling the tears well up in my eyes. Sometimes the memories merely served to make me feel helpless and humiliated at what I'd gone through that I still hadn't managed to tell all of them. I willed the tears to stay in place and raised my head to glance up at him. "Didn't want to hold us all up by being a slowpoke." I said lightly. "Thank you for the milk." I said, picking up the glass and drinking half of it in one drink.

"You're welcome." He said, studying me for a long moment.

Erica's hand landed on my shoulder and I willed myself to not flinch at the sudden contact. I was sure this would all be excellent fodder for my next session with my Academy therapist. This was a bit of improvement, the fact that I could manage to sit still and stay put if Erica touched me or hugged me. I glanced over my shoulder at her. "It's okay. Take your time, you won't be the one making us late." She smiled gently. "trust me when I say that usually works out to be Luke whenever I've gone somewhere with all of them."

I felt a tentative smile turn the corners of my lips up. "Thanks. That is reassuring. I really just need shoes and for my hair to be tamed from the wild beast that it thinks it is right now." I said, using my fork to cut a piece of pineapple into smaller pieces.

"That's understandable and if you'd like, I could braid your hair while you finish your milk and eat what you want out of the fruit." She offered.

I took a long look at my fruit and exhaled slowly. "Sure." I finally said. "I'd like that." I admitted.

She patted my arm gently and put my hair ties around her wrist and grabbed the comb. "Okay, one braid or two?"

I glanced at Jessica, noting the twin French braids that started at the crown of her head and curved along over her ears before winding up in two braids down her back. "Two might be excellent for traveling today." I said.

"Two it is." Erica smiled and let me turn my attention back to my plate. There were a few tugs and snags as she worked the comb through my tangled, just out of bed, mess of hair. I tilted my head when she needed me to and let her finish up, even though I'd managed to clean my plate and drain my glass entirely. "There. All done. And now I have two beautiful daughters with braids that would make Katniss green with envy."

I smiled. "Thanks, Erica. I really appreciate it."

"You're welcome." She gave me the comb back and double checked Jessica's braids before she went to take over in the kitchen so that all the boys could get ready to leave.

I looked at Jessica and she looked back at me. "Is that how it's always been?"

She tilted her head and studied me. "What do you mean? Always willing to claim everyone else as one of her kids?" I nodded. She thought for a long moment and shrugged a slim shoulder. "Yeah, pretty much. The boys are my extra brothers. Always have been, always will be." She gave me a shy smile. "I always hoped for a sister. I know you have one but..."

I smiled. "I do. But I don't really consider her to be one anymore." I said. "And I always wanted to be a big sister so I'm in to being sisters if you are."

Her face brightened and she beamed at me. "Oh, thank you!" She said before giving me a quick, exuberant hug.

I managed to hug her back, patting her shoulder a bit awkwardly. "you're welcome." I murmured before letting go of her and the two of us took our plates into the kitchen before I disappeared to my room to make sure I had the vacation essentials that I wanted for riding in the car.

I thought for a moment as I stuck a couple books in the large tote bag, staring at myself in the mirror. I wasn't sure I'd actually be any sort of good sister for Jessica but she seemed so hopeful about what we could become for each other. I blinked at myself and shook it off.

If she could consider all nine of my boys brothers, then I'd be more than happy to work on being an honest to goodness sister to her in return.


	58. Chapter 55

~A~

Owen had stayed mostly out of sight in the kitchen while Sang ate. He'd noticed, of course, that she was eating the rather full plate of food pretty quick.

She didn't normally eat that fast, nor did she typically eat that much.

His eyes flicked over the three women at the table. His darling, Sang. Kota's mom, Erica and sister, Jessica. All three women had a piece of his heart.

Sang was the woman he hoped to build a future with.

Erica was the mother that he'd needed since the age of 13 when he no longer had one of his own.

Jessica was the sister that he'd never had, the one he vowed to look out for no matter what because she was the first girl that ever wrapped him around her little finger.

Sang was uniquely different than any woman he'd ever known and the most Academy of any woman he'd ever known. The two women with her were also more than worthy Academy recruits but he knew enough after all this time to never, ever suggest it to Kota. He started slightly when a hand landed on his shoulder.

"Quite the eating habit today for Pookie." Sean commented in his ear. 'She never eats that fast."

Owen pushed his glasses up slightly on his nose. "No, she doesn't. I wonder what's going on in her head today. She's …" he shrugged. "If I get a chance, I may just ask her if she wants to speak to her therapist by phone."

Sean's lips drew down into a frown. "You think?" He asked. "It's been a while since she needed to speak to her therapist."

Owen inclined his head slightly. "Yes, but she's either had a good breakthrough or a bad memory and she's learned to school her features well enough that I would need a closer look at her to see what's going on in that beautiful head of hers."

Sean nodded slightly. "I can understand that. And if she doesn't need to talk to the therapist, maybe she'll be able to talk it out with you. I believe you do have the seat next to her for the first few hours of our journey today."

Owen brightened. "Very true. Thank you, Sean for reminding me."

Sean chuckled and slapped Owen on the shoulder. "Just doing my job as your best friend." He said.

"you always do your job." He said in return.

Sean's ears turned pink. "I do try."

Owen smiled slightly. "I know."

"You've never made it easy on me, O-man." Sean grinned.

"Oh, not that nickname again." Owen sighed, pushing his glasses up and pinching the bridge of his nose. "I had more than enough of that one while you were studying human anatomy … reproduction systems, wasn't it?"

"Yup." Sean grinned again and popped the 'P' sound at the end of the word.

"Failing it on purpose of course."

Sean shrugged. "perhaps."

Owen raised an eyebrow at him. "yes…" He nodded.

"Fine, fine." Sean waved it off. "I passed."

"After Dr. Roberts caught on to you." Owen said dryly.

Sean shrugged. "It was time to move on anyway."

"Glad you realized it." Owen glanced around. The kitchen was almost cleaned up. "Time to get ourselves on the road, I believe." He checked the clock.

"Yes." Sean nodded. "I'll go get things moving in that direction. Good chat." He said, patting Owen on the shoulder before he headed out of the kitchen.

Owen shook his head slightly before snorting softly.

Good chat.

Sure.

Owen glanced at the clock again and went to make sure he had everything he needed in his bag. It was about 7 hours to Orlando and they'd probably end up with 2 bathroom stops and lunch which would make it closer to 9 hours before they were at their condo.

He had to admit he wasn't really looking forward to the road trip part of the vacation. There was a reason he and Sean let the boys and Sang go on ahead this year to camp. Well, more than one reason, really.

They were old enough to drive themselves and he had to admit, a few of his brothers tended to grate on his last nerve on long car trips.

He hadn't paid enough attention to the car assignments but took solace in the fact that they were switching cars at the breaks they took. Hopefully, he'd get to spend some time with Sang and get a chance to talk to her about what had happened this morning. If not, well, he'd do his best to enjoy it.


	59. Chapter 56

I was absolutely pleased when it ended up that I was sitting next to Owen in the car. He wasn't going to be a driver until we were headed into Florida and I smiled at him and wrapped one arm around his waist. "Well, aren't you the lucky one." I murmured before kissing his cheek.

"I've been the lucky one since the first day I met you, darling." Owen said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. "We do need to have a bit of a chat this morning so this will be good."

"A chat?" I echoed.

"Nothing major, I just want to make sure everything is all right." He said.

My eyes flitted up to study his.

"You can call your therapist if you want."

"No." I shook my head, realizing he'd obviously been watching me this morning and as perfect as my Mr. Blackbourne could be, had instantly locked on to something being out of ordinary today. "I can talk to you. I want to enjoy my first ever vacation. If it's okay with you, maybe I can just talk things out with you while we're gone. I can make an appointment after we get back if I need one."

"All right, darling." He kissed my temple again and went to hurry everyone along into their spots in the vans so we could leave. I quickly got into my spot, stowing my tote bag at my feet and flashing Jessica a huge grin as she settled into her seat behind mine.

"This is going to be fun." She said.

"I think so." I agreed. "Gabriel went over the dressing up ideas we had, right?"

She grinned again. "Yes, trust me when I say that I am thrilled to be included."

"Good." I laughed and we settled in as the boys got in and took their seats and Owen settled in next to me, buckling his seat belt before he put his arm down and reached for my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. "Fancy meeting you here." I said.

"Imagine that." He returned with a dry tone as North started the van and started us along on our journey. He raised my hand and kissed the back of it, shifting slightly to face me. His gray eyes stared straight into mine, searching and reassuring himself that all was fine.

"I'm fine." I said, ducking my head slightly to break the gaze.

"I'm sure you are." He reached out with his free hand, raising my chin up with two fingers underneath it. "Was today just about bad memories or did something happen?"

I shrugged lightly. "I was feeling bad about being the last one up and North made some comment about being able to take my fruit with me if I didn't finish in time. I just was hungry so I ate fast."

He inclined his head slightly, one perfect eyebrow arching up in question.

"I'm not sure if you and Sean have totally figured this out or not but some of my punishments growing up involved limited food." I said as casually as I could.

"We suspected." He admitted. "You spent a lot of the first 6 months that we knew you in a severely under nourished state. It wasn't until after camp, when we finally got you in the right spots to pay more attention to what you ate and how often you ate that we could make a difference. It's the reason for the anemia and low blood pressure."

I nodded slightly. "I could have guessed that. I'm sorry that I haven't been more open with what's gone on in my past." I leaned forward, dislodging his fingers and resting my head on his shoulders. "I have talked about most things in my therapy sessions but there are still some deep seeded issues with food and my… mo.. step mom."

His thumb started to gently stroke the back of my hand as he held it. It was soothing and I know that he meant it to be.

My Mr. Blackbourne. Owen, my love. So formal for the entire first 10 months that I knew him but after our date that last day of school? A constant joy and presence in my life that I could not survive without. He made an active listening noise, deep in his throat and I almost giggled before I continued. "Some of her more creative punishments used to involve withholding food. It was a lot easier for her to do it during the summer because she could feed me one meal a day and no one cared. She used to try it during the school year but someone always noticed if I didn't have a lunch. I managed to scrape some money together at one point and used it to get a meal card started. I would at least be able to have breakfast if I didn't have anything else and then I could manage to eat my meager lunch throughout the day to hopefully avoid starving that night. Because I didn't always get dinner."

"And your dad just let it happen?"

"She mostly did it when he was traveling." I admitted. "She couldn't get away with it when he was home because he did, for the most part, have an expectation that Marie and I were supposed to be at the table. And she didn't like that because he would notice I wasn't eating." He nodded. "It was just part of my life. And things are so much better now. It just struck me today that there are still some days that I never feel full. And I've spent most of the day eating or nibbling at something and I just can't stop because I'm scared someone will take the food away from me."

"No one's going to do that to you anymore." He said softly, needing to make me understand that.

"I know. But maybe we need to talk about not making a big deal about it. I'll eat when I eat and if some days I'm eating faster or more than usual then we need to just ignore it and move on."

He chuckled. "We can do that." He agreed. "I'll jot it down on the agenda for our next family meeting."

"Sounds good." I shifted and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "Love you." I murmured, my eyes searching his when he turned his gaze on me again.

His lips tilted up at the corners into a millimeter smile. "Love you too." He murmured, giving my hand a squeeze.

I got lost in the fun of a true road trip at that point because wouldn't you know it? Gabriel, Luke and Erica had put their heads together and come up with Disney themed car bingo for the first part of our journey. Every one of us had a different card and it was a lot of fun. I hardly noticed that we'd gone far enough down the road and we were stopping because there was a need for a bathroom break and for leg stretching and some more snacks because Nathan had forgotten to grab the last bag that had the granola bars and beef jerky in it when North told him to grab it on the way out the door.

We had our first seat switch of the trip and I got into the other van, happily finding my seat between Sean and Victor. "Hey Pookie." Sean grinned and leaned in to kiss me before letting me buckle my seat belt.

"Sean. Behave." I rolled my eyes at him before I kissed him back and turned to look at Victor. "Would you normally have flown?" I asked.

He quirked an eyebrow at me.

I swear, all of them had taken life lessons from Owen in ways to drive me crazy by acting the same.

"Maybe." He smiled. "Did you enjoy your first part of the road trip, Princess?"

"I did. It was fun playing bingo." I reached into the bag I'd gotten inside the mini mart and pulled out a packet of beef jerky, opening it and taking out a piece to nibble on.

"Then I probably wouldn't have flown." He said, tilting towards me to kiss my cheek.

"Did you and Owen have a talk?" Sean asked, studying me as I chewed on my teriyaki beef jerky. I nodded. "And all is well?" He pressed.

I nodded again, swallowing what was in my mouth. "Yes." I reached up and laid my hand on his cheek. "All is perfectly fine." I reassured him.

"Good." He winked at me and settled into his seat more, already looking out the window and trying to guess what was next on the car activity list. He really had Luke going with some of his guesses which often were simply apple pie and dinosaurs.

Sometimes I did not even pretend to understand the mind of my beloved doctor.

I, sadly, missed out on the activity for this particular stretch of road as I fell asleep on Sean's shoulder and he and Victor were quite happy to inform me that I had the most adorable little snore.

I rolled my eyes at them and would have protested more but I had just woken up after a 2-hour nap, we were parked outside of one of the quaintest restaurants I'd ever seen and Victor, oh so helpfully, played the recording of my snoring. "Wait…" I stared at the restaurant. "We're going to eat here?"

"Yes, Princess."

"How come we never eat at Cracker Barrel at home?" I demanded, stopping in my tracks. There were at least two that I remembered seeing around Charleston.

Victor shrugged. "Because we mostly eat at the diner or at home?" he offered.

"I guess we never thought that you'd want to eat here." Sean said, claiming my hand and urging me forward.

I guess I could see that. It's not like any of us chose to have dates there. I never asked either, even though there were several of them between Chicago and Charleston and we had stopped there on the move.

We wouldn't discuss that I was always ordered to get something off the kids of all ages menu.

Because well, it was for all ages and she certainly couldn't have me sitting there looking like I was starving.

"It's okay. I usually associate it with driving places anyway. So, I'd like to propose that we always eat here at least once whenever we go on a vacation and there is a Cracker Barrel around. And I demand that we get some rockers for at least two of our front porches."

They both laughed. "Next meeting, Princess and we can order the rockers online. Just tell me how many you want." Victor said.

I gave him an impish grin. "Don't you think having ten of them along Owen's front porch would be fun?"

Sean burst out in even more laughter. "Pookie… he'll need a bigger front porch first."

I shrugged. "Not my problem. Do you need me to convince him that he needs one?"

"Maybe." Sean gave me a look before kissing my temple and escorting me right through that double row of rocking chairs and into the restaurant.


	60. Chapter 57

I had to admit, I'd never imagined that a vacation at Disney World would be so amazing but here we were. Almost through our WDW portion of the vacation and I was having the greatest time.

We all were.

Jessica was having a great time too. It was so much fun to be at Universal with her the other day as we dragged the boys all over the park but kept going back to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as often as we could. Of course, we were all dressed in house colors.

Erica made a wonderful Professor McGonagall.

North in solid black was our fill in for Professor Snape. Which was a fact that Luke spent all day laughing about.

But it was just as much fun as our Disney days had been. I'm glad that we thought about just going to one park a day. We were able to explore all the options and enjoy all the rides and food we wanted to. We had at least one more day this week and we were planning on park hopping our way through the day so that we could go back and hit our highlights from each park.

Next week was our week to have fun in Orlando. We were going to play a round of golf and Silas and I were going to have our date at the Red Sox vs. the Rays baseball game. The others were sitting elsewhere and to be honest, I was excited to be at a live baseball game with him.

I'd have to say that the way we'd managed to dress for our theme park days was really fun and I'm happy that Gabriel got so in to the idea and he'd put together the perfect outfits for each of us.

I am so glad that I found that website about Disney bounding. It meant everything to me that we were able to get even North to "dress" up for the most part. Even if we did just keep everything black. We found plenty of characters to call him because black was their thing.

Let's see. We went to Magic Kingdom on the first day. Well that just said Princess to me and Gabriel agreed. I was dressed in Pink as Princess Aurora, we accessorized me with a pink sleep mask just for fun, because I had just had a super long nap. Jessica was in teal with a few arrow accessories so that she could be Merida from Brave, Erica made a good Belle. Silas was Naveen from Princess and The Frog, Kota was Prince Charming, Owen was Prince Phillip, Sean was Eugene, you know, Flynn Rider from Tangled. Luke managed to pull off a Cinderella gender bend. North, well, was there any other choice for him but the Beast?

The answer is no.

Gabriel was happy with his choice of a Mulan gender bend and Victor chose to call himself my fairy godfather while Nathan chose to be Prince Eric.

We made such a great group, we ended up getting pictures taken and I'm sure there were plenty of pictures taken of us. Such a great first day. We watched fireworks and the electric parade. It was well after midnight when we got home and I managed to get myself inside the rental just fine but Jessica had fallen asleep and Silas carried her in.

Our second day was in Epcot. I think we were all a little surprised to find out that Jessica fell in love with the France area. I think she would have stayed there all day, perfectly happy to eat French pastries.

There was a cool night time show over there too but we weren't there as late as we were at Magic Kingdom the day before because Epcot closed earlier.

We still made a big scene with our choice of costuming. Our second day choice was Alice in Wonderland.

Why yes, I was happy to be Alice. It was pretty easy, blue shorts and a white tank top with a headband and a strappy pair of black flats.

Jessica was in pink and purple to be our Cheshire Cat, Erica had pulled off an amazing Queen of Hearts. Luke and Gabriel, well it was probably no surprise that they were Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. Owen was the White Rabbit. Sean was the Mad Hatter. North and Silas were dressed in black but North had a Club symbol and Silas the Spade to counter Nathan in red to be the Diamond and Victor also in red as the representative for the Hearts. Kota wasn't sure that he was down with the idea of us doing Alice in Wonderland but he did have a choice between the March Hare or the Caterpillar. I laughed and told him he could choose flamingo.

It earned me a dirty look and he went with Caterpillar. He was an adorable Caterpillar.

For animal kingdom, we decided to dress as animals from the movies. North was thrilled with this decision because it meant that he could wear all black, I know, surprising, and be Mordeau from Brave. Kota went with mostly green as a shout out to the frog portion of Princess and the Frog. Erica also chose mostly black with a pair of teal and green plaid shorts so that she could be the Queen in her bear form out of Brave. Silas chose a bright blue with yellow accents and insisted we call him Dory for the day. Gabriel grabbed the orange and black stripes and became our Tigger, or maybe he was Raj from Aladdin, he didn't exactly clarify. But maybe the fact that Luke chose to be Abu from Aladdin should have explained things for us. Owen's choice of all gray, left us no options but to call him Eeyore. I rather think he enjoyed it. Nathan's choice of red was not at all surprising, especially when he wished us all dishonor on our cows. Mushu was an excellent choice.

Victor wore white and surprised us a bit when he insisted we call him Bolt. Jessica stuck with pink and made a perfectly adorable Piglet. Sean was wearing purple and green as a gender bend for Princess Atta from Bug's life and I was rocking some purple and black because, well, Ursula was a sea witch and a Disney villain BUT she was also an octopus. Animal. So there. I always mentally add that in my head because I had to fight with Gabriel to make him understand and there may or may not have been a tongue stuck out at him.

Our visit to Hollywood Studios meant going back to our classic ideas. Snow White was the choice. Kota reprised his role of Prince Charming. That was easy since he'd already pulled that off earlier in the week. I was Snow White, Erica made a great evil queen in spite of the fact that she tried to talk us into letting her be the old hag. Silas was the huntsman while the others each took a role of the dwarves. Sean was Doc, no big surprise there either. Luke had claimed Happy a long time ago, North, also unsurprisingly, made a fantastic Grumpy. Owen was Bashful, Gabriel was Dopey, Nathan claimed Sleepy and that left Victor as Sneezy. I did feel bad because that really didn't leave much room for Jessica to fit in but she laughed and said that instead of playing a woodland animal or a jewel in the jewel mine, she was fine with being the apple. Gabriel pulled that one off like no one's business and because he went ahead and put her in a pink toned red and called her a Pink Lady apple, she was thrilled. He even braided her hair to make it look like a stem and leaf. She looked amazing.

Our last day was going to be spent hopping to all the parks to ride rides again and eat the things we wanted to eat from each park. I probably shouldn't have to mention that Luke was planning on eating churros at every opportunity all day long but he was more than excited about the churros. We went classic again and pulled off Peter Pan. I think the group Peter Pan was the one we were most happy with and I know Gabriel has made some notes about pulling out everything again for Halloween. I, of course, was Wendy. Sean, since he is the one of us most likely to never grow up was a perfect Peter Pan. North claimed Captain Hook while Silas insisted that he wanted to be Mister Smee. Owen played Wendy's brother John and Luke was happy to be the other brother Michael. Erica made us all laugh when she decided she was better off being Nana the St. Bernard nanny. Jessica made a cute Tinkerbell and the other boys filled in as the Lost Boys.

We were epic. The photographers commented on it all the time when they took our pictures.

This has been the best vacation.

I didn't actually have anything to compare it too because, well, a car ride to move from Illinois to South Carolina shouldn't ever be called a vacation. I just hoped we could do something every year as a family that would be as much fun as this vacation.


End file.
